


Buck and Wildebeest

by leslielol



Category: Justified
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 111,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leslielol/pseuds/leslielol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Concussed, unarmed, and the target of killers, Raylan takes a trip up a mountain in the trunk of a car. Tim isn't so fortunate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> \- "Justified" belongs to its original creators, Leonard, FX, Yost, et al. No harm is meant with this nonsense.
> 
> \- This is a work-in-progress, set between seasons 3 and 4. 
> 
> \- The title is from a line in Mother Mother's "Bit by Bit," which is a bit of personal headcanon for Tim going to Kentucky and joining the U.S. Marshal Service. 
> 
> \- The Rape/Non-Con is not explicit, but it occupies a large chunk of the story.

It was the trunk of a car, Raylan realized, blinking confusedly in the darkness. The worn interior; bulges where his neck and legs ought to fit comfortably, but didn’t; the stench of all matter of things never scrubbed out of the short fibers rubbing at his cheek with all the comfort of a scouring pad. Blood, first and foremost among the flagrant assaults to his senses. 

A trunk, he came to accept, was not the most ideal place in which to find oneself. He ought to know--he’d stuffed enough people into his own. 

_At least I don’t tote roadkill along for the ride,_ Raylan thought bitterly, _certain_ that something damp and furry was stowed just behind him, though only _hopeful_ it was dead. He made a mental note that any further fugitives unfortunate enough to find themselves locked in the trunk of his pristine Lincoln Town Car were at least lucky they’d be doing so without any unwanted company.

Beyond the trunk, Raylan hadn’t uncovered much. The throbbing pain engulfing the back of his head and neck suggested he’d taken a few hits and sustained a concussion. He closed his eyes to the awful space, steadied his breathing, and concentrated. 

_In a trunk. In a trunk, but not moving. The car isn’t moving. Are we parked? Is that--birds?_

Raylan’s eyes snapped open, his mind seeming to no longer lag behind his senses. “ _Shit_ ,” he swore, and made the leap from realizing where he was to recognizing the immediate need to _get himself out._

In the dark, he fumbled for a release cable, but found none; he supposed the model was too old to be outfitted with the feature. Rolling from his side to his back, Raylan tucked his legs up to his chest and exercised one powerful kick. The whole car shook. Repositioning the heels of his boots near a corner, he issued another several kicks. The car whined in protest.

With each kick, something seemed to come to light in the confined space of Raylan’s immediate world. He remembered a late night at the office, a long drive _not_ spent in the trunk. _Kick._ Raylan was driving, in fact. _Kick._ He remembered the shine of his badge as he parked, then crossed through the bright headlights on his car--the only thing illuminating his path towards a rundown country home. 

Raylan was scoping out an area, looking for a fugitive who had crossed into Kentucky and was staying with friends--themselves not the most upstanding of citizens. He’d gone out on an anonymous tip. _Kick._

He was ambushed, Raylan remembered bitterly, as one image formed with a kind of clarity borne only from reality: Not ten feet away from him, Raylan had seen his fugitive looking _surprised_ before swallowing a barrage of bullets . _Kick._

The car’s frame gave its last wail and groan, and issued its death rattle. The last thought that passed Raylan’s mind before the latch finally gave, snapping open like a mouth hungry for open blue skies was-- _shit._

He hadn’t been alone in the office, or driven by himself with the radio humming in and out of range over the hills, or sought out the fugitive without backup.

“Tim!”

Raylan scrambled out of the trunk. Though dazed by the sunlight, he kept his eyes open and tried to remain alert. He didn’t recognize the car--old, red or rusted to appear so--and its surroundings offered little explanation: trees, hills, sky. An empty mountaintop. 

Raylan shouted into the empty air and heard his voice echo back. A wave of dread fell over him; perhaps Tim never even made it into the car. Raylan certainly hadn’t had his wits about him for too long into their encounter with the four-or-so armed men. Had Tim taken a bullet, too? Had he bled out on the same stained garage floor as their fugitive? Was it even so much as an afterthought, putting him down?

Tim’s name again echoed fruitlessly over the mountainous terrain. 

It did not occur to Raylan to check the car until a flash of something caught his eye--something a dusty yellow-brown color that didn't match the red car or its black interior. It was Tim’s military style boot, or rather its heel, pressed into the upper right corner of the side back window. Raylan, not entirely without his wits, raced to the side opposite Tim’s boots and flung open the door.

“Shit,” Raylan breathed, his first thought being that his fellow marshal was dead. Completely still, pale skin exposed, Tim looked the part. Raylan stared blankly, terrified that inspecting any further would only confirm his suspicions. Tim’s head was pillowed on his fists, themselves knotted together with a dozen loops of scratchy, painful twine. 

But it wasn’t the pale, buried face that consumed Raylan’s attention. Rather, it was the state of Tim’s lower half: his legs were trussed up, spread apart--one bound to the headrest of the passenger seat (explaining the heel of his boot pressed against the window), the other tied to a handrail near one of the seat belts. Tim’s pants were down, his ass bare, save for the pattern of bruises creeping up his thighs and disappearing between his cheeks. 

Raylan felt every sane thought leave him. 

He moved quickly, his lethargic, aching body suddenly swift as he rounded the car, threw open the back door, and made quick work of the restraints. Vaguely, Raylan heard himself muttering. “Jesus Christ, Tim. Jesus fucking Christ. Wake up. _Wake up._ ”

Raylan darted to the other side of the car, finally kneeling to face the marshal directly. He moved to sweep Tim’s mussed hair from his forehead, to search for any spark of life in his keen eyes. No sooner had his hand grazed the man’s head did Tim’s white-knuckled fists come at Raylan like gunfire, hitting him square between the eyes. 

“Fuck!” Raylan gasped, startled backwards and clutching his nose. “Tim, it’s me!”

Tim was suddenly alive with movement--squirming, writhing, and jerking his head back to get a clear look at Raylan through his hair. 

“Raylan?” Tim groaned, stilling. Suddenly, his eyes were wide and the next words he uttered were solid as oak. “The fucking car is rigged!”

Sparing a second to understand, Raylan suddenly found himself staring at the wad of explosives haphazardly duct taped to the roof of the car, but not quite registering its purpose or meaning. 

“The fuck...”

“My--!” Tim started to kick at the restraints that had kept him tethered to the car, but found his legs blissfully lax. Raylan raced to the other side again and leaned in, grabbing Tim’s middle and hoisting him up. He heard Tim pleading for speed, but could hardly make out the words. He issued his own in turn, and tried for assuring. _“You’re okay, buddy. I got you. I got you. You’re okay.”_

Raylan tugged Tim out of the car, somehow managing get a handle on Tim’s jeans and underpants, pulling them up as they slid out. 

Although his legs were weak, Tim’s grip was like iron around Raylan’s bicep as he clamoured from the car and headed for the grassy woods lining the road, forcing Raylan to follow. They ran and stopped only when Tim, red-faced, collapsed on the ground, swearing and gasping for breath. He pressed his back to one among the large collection of rocks suitable as shelter from any potential blast. The air, hot and still as it was, remained untouched. 

Heart pounding in his ears, Raylan raised a steadying hand toward Tim, then stood and squinted down the path leading back to the car. The pounding seemed to stop as he surveyed the dark mass he knew to be a stack of dynamite. How he’d missed it rounding the car, he supposed, only spoke to how fully the state of his fellow marshal had garnered his attention. The explosives were neatly piled, leading only one name to pass through his mind, but something--not unfounded doubt, as this shit-fest didn’t reek of a piece of Boyd Crowder planning--stayed his accusation. 

He _hoped_ it wasn’t Boyd. 

And practically speaking, Boyd wasn’t one to experience a false start. Although the intent and execution were present, Raylan couldn’t help but think he and Tim were party to the work of amateurs. 

There was no mistaking, however, their current set of circumstances: spirited off into the mountains, Raylan concussed and without his gun, and Tim--

Raylan glanced to Tim, who was still on the ground. He’d swept the earth for something sharp, and had settled on a particularly ridged edge on a nearby stone protruding from the ground. He was making furious--but uneven--work of the restrains still cutting into his wrists. Raylan drifted back to Tim’s side and crumpled to the ground beside him, suddenly exhausted. Raylan covered his own hands over Tim’s, and pulled them away. Tim was doing more harm than good. 

Raylan picked at the twine until he started to get a feel for the knots. Tim worked to steady his breathing and eventually reigned himself in, only to choke out a strangled sob and duck his head. 

Soon, the knots came apart quickly and Raylan not only found himself muttering questions, but hearing those questions answered, as well.

“What the fuck just happened?” 

It was practically whispered, and not meant for Tim, but his fellow marshal shrugged once and replied simply, “Kidnapped.” His voice was hoarse from--what? _Screaming_ , Raylan thought immediately, then revised: _disuse._

“It wasn’t--”

“Our guy?” Tim interrupted, then coughed to clear his throat. “No. They killed him. And his buddies. I saw four go down, total. All armed.”

“Who--?”

“I don’t know, Raylan,” Tim snapped irritably. After a time he wet his lips and tried again, sounding as professional as he could manage. "Four men in ski masks, all white, all armed. Only two took shots." 

Raylan found himself on the final knot, and suddenly felt hesitant. What was there after this, Raylan wondered, panicked. Where were the ambulances and police sirens and every other means of obscuring the fact that Raylan did not know what the hell he could do in this situation? “Tim--”

“Don’t,” Tim breathed, and gave his wrists a defiant tug under Raylan’s hands, imploring his release.

“...You’re going to be okay.”

Finishing, Raylan fell silent and actively made an effort not to stare at Tim.

It was a poorly managed effort.

There was blood leading from his nose to his lip, then smeared, dried, and flaking down his chin. Some uneven bruising bloomed across his forehead and right cheek, but the mottled spread of the black-purple marks didn’t suggest any string of punches was sustained. When Raylan put the pattern together, he found he couldn’t look at the man. He stopped watching Tim draw his legs to his chest, one at a time as he tried to work the ache out of his muscles. Instead, Raylan turned and focused on the car, only to imagine Tim’s face bouncing against the interior of one of the back doors. The matching bruises on his forearms, too, spoke to a changed position but no relief. 

He turned and found Tim staring at him, eyes wide and ringed with pink--because he hadn’t slept or because he was willing himself not to cry, Raylan couldn’t be certain. 

“Thank you.” Although his voice was so hoarse it seemed to rattle, Tim spoke with such sincerity that the blood in Raylan’s veins turned to ice. 

_Christ_ , he thought, wanting to bail but unable to weasel out from under Tim’s gaze. With sick and bile rolling around in his gut, Raylan realized whatever he’d seen, whatever the picture was that he’d put together with the aftermath... Tim’s reality shattered it. His appreciation for Raylan’s help escaping the car was so heartfelt and grave, Raylan almost wanted to hold out a hand and tell Tim, _No, stop. I don’t want to hear about it._

“Fuck,” Tim breathed, physically shaking with relief. He again drew his knees closer to his chest and splayed his elbows out to rest upon them, then tucked his head into the gap and raked his fingers through his filthy hair. “ _Thank you._ ”

Raylan got to his feet and took several hesitant steps toward the road, listening for activity. Wildlife upon the hills seemed to defer to his efforts, so the road--quiet and unused--seemed emptier still. Ultimately, Raylan only heard Tim’s steady breathing and his own thumping heart. 

Raylan’s mind turned to the vision of Tim strung up in the car and the parts of him that didn’t make sense: the slope of his exposed lower back, the roundness of his ass, and the spread of his white thighs, speckled with fluids and bruises, muscular and twitching in their long-held discomfort. These were pieces of Tim Raylan didn’t know; he could scarcely even imagine them, though there they were on full display.

No longer breathy and awed with relief, Tim had turned fidgety and dutiful to a task-centric sense of security. Sitting on the cool earth under the shade and cover of aged trees, Tim tried to zip and fasten the fly of his jeans while simultaneously school his expression into one that did not betray his true feelings on the matter. Rather than sickened, hurt, or repulsed, Tim looked focused. 

And if he had to give a name to the line in Tim’s brow or the way he kept his stare hard, but saw nothing, Raylan would call it _sadness_. Raylan tried to keep all of what he’d seen off his face; Tim was nothing if not perceptive, as he was oft to point out to Raylan in the course of their marshal work.

Still, the sight had been a shock and Raylan didn’t imagine forgetting it anytime soon. What made the image all the more daunting, however, was how unexpected it had been. Although by his own admission Tim was a kill-from-afar type, he’d never lost composure when situations had taken an unpleasant--and intimate--turn. Both men were smart enough to know when they should drop their guns, and when they could risk a shot. 

(Tim had once corrected Raylan during a routine briefing/dressing-down with Art: “It’s not a risk if _I’m_ taking the shot.”) 

They’d both sustained a few blows in the course of their kidnapping--to the gut, mostly, as a means of subduing them. Raylan’s concussion came about _before_ his placement in the trunk; he was certain he wouldn’t have been there, otherwise. He couldn’t imagine Tim not behaving accordingly: he’d assess their situation, keep a cool head, and work as options presented themselves. 

Situational awareness. Raylan had picked up the term someplace and used it once, only to notice Tim smirking out of the corner of his eye. Though it didn’t occur to him at the time--mostly, he thought Tim was being a dick and smiling pitifully at the hillbilly who had learned a new word--who could possibly be more situationally aware than a sniper? 

If anything, Tim knew how to exploit a situation. In the field, it was a work of art. Anywhere else--particularly in a confined space with Raylan--Tim was damn annoying while doing it.

Despite this, Raylan’s imagination ran rampant with wild explanations as to what may have turned things against Tim, and angrily, Raylan caught himself wondering what _Tim_ might have done to provoke their assailants, and cursing that _Tim_ had been too _Ranger_ (in the sense that Raylan was sometimes too _cowboy_ ), and the situation escalated from there. 

Raylan swore under his breath. Neither was the case. 

The expression on Tim’s face wasn’t _sadness_ or _focus_. It was betrayal. Perhaps he had been the ideal hostage--quiet, non-confrontational, even affable--and was nonetheless brutalized. 

Otherwise, there was no making sense of what happened to him, and Raylan’s absence in his defense came to occupy his dark thoughts. Lowlife criminals were lowlife criminals, after all--what could Tim really expect? From his co-worker and friend, however... 

Stepping back into the cover of the woods, Raylan crouched beside his fellow marshal and asked lamely, “You okay?”

Tim nodded immediately, but said nothing for a time. His fingers were fumbling at his belt, as though he had forgotten how to use the nimble digits. When metal bit into leather and Tim finally spoke he settled on, “Foot hurts like hell. Twisted ankle, I guess.” 

He struggled to stand and, ultimately, was not able to mask the immense pain caused by the simple act. Tim chewed his gasp of pain, gnawing it down to nothing. He gritted out a hopeful, “Gimmie a hand?”

Raylan stooped and lent an arm around Tim’s middle, meaning to give a little relief to his injured foot. Tim struggled to walk nonetheless, simply unable to use Raylan as a crutch given the man’s impressive height advantage. Raylan found himself shrugging lower with every attempted step.

“Shit,” Tim huffed. “This isn’t going to work. You’re going to pull something, old man.” 

“It’s fine,” Raylan said, and they walked uncomfortably through the woods until Tim reasoned they were clear of the car and any blast it might yet produce.

“Raylan--” Tim winced in protest as they took a jumbled leap off the grassy shoulder and into the dirt path.

With purposeful steps, Raylan led him to the other side. “Here, it dips down a bit. If you can keep on that ledge, we may about break even.” 

“Thanks,” Tim said, sounding embarrassed. After walking a little longer without incident, he repeated himself, quiet and sincere. 

The mountain imparted a kind of silence that was equally peaceful and daunting. Raylan found it familiar, though not pleasantly so, and he worried for Tim’s health and pride as the only sounds arresting their ears were those few grunts and gasps the marshal couldn’t smother. 

After a few minutes of hurried walking, Raylan stopped. Tim stopped with him. 

It was warm--warm enough to momentarily throw Raylan into thinking it was possibly past noon. The short shadows cut from surrounding trees told him otherwise, suggesting it was no later than mid-morning. 

Raylan stared at the endless mountain landscape opening up before them. There wasn’t a single awkward telephone pole jutting up through the trees, no buildings squatted on the rolling hills, and any sparkling beacon of human ingenuity that might have existed in rural, Eastern Kentucky was far out of sight. Even the dirt road seemed to usher in and out of existence. 

It simply didn’t look real. 

Though Raylan eyes were clouded with confusion, every bit of skin was buzzing with adrenaline. Aloud, he marvelled, “What the _fuck?_ ”

“Right?” Tim drawled, lifting his pale face to further expose his skin to the warm sun. He nudged forward and forced Raylan to continue on their march. “Crazy weather for October.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow moving as hell, this.

In Lexington, U.S. Deputy Marshal Rachel Brooks had had enough. Years ago, she’d jokingly told Art the reason she wanted more hires was to liven up the view from her desk. This, more so than better equip the department and ease her workload. Art had remembered this and introduced Tim as her _lovely vision._ Tim, proving himself unflappable on day one, greeted Rachel with an army-perfected nod of status recognition--“Deputy Brooks,”--and then cocked his head at Art, returning in a flattered tone, “Thank you, sir.” 

Looking across the marshal offices now, Rachel found her view lacking. She pushed out from behind her desk and entered her boss’ office without knocking. “Tim isn’t answering his cell,” she said in a way that so commanded Art’s attention that he gave up on the call he was making. 

“Neither is Raylan,” he returned, then made a face.

“Like I said,” Rachel pressed, returning the look. “ _Tim_ isn’t answering.” 

Art heaved himself up from his desk and stood over it contemplatively. “I know what Raylan was _supposed_ to be working on,” he said after a spell. “Is there something else I don’t know about that might have piqued his interest?”

“Not that I know of,” Rachel admitted, glancing out at Raylan’s tidy desk space. Her gaze moved to Tim’s, more cluttered with work and handwritten notes. “If Raylan has him along, Tim would have done all the heavy lifting,” she noted, proceeding to leave the office to rifle among Tim’s things. Art joined her. 

The files he’d hidden away in his desk all seemed to point vaguely in the direction of Raylan’s _actual_ assignment: an off-the-radar manhunt for a federal fugitive known to operate largely in Florida, but seemed to branch out every couple of months through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio. 

“Oxy Express?” Raylan had asked lamely when Art gave him the case earlier that week. 

Art had snipped, “You make your own fun, Raylan.” The fugitive--Kyle Clemens--had murdered half a dozen people for good measure. 

Art tried not to dwell on his dismissive remark. “Pick me up a coffee while you’re out” could just as well have been a death sentence for Raylan Givens. 

Sharing Rachel’s concern for Tim’s mirrored disappearance, however, brought Art out of his anxious funk. He gathered, then split the files between himself and Rachel, meaning for the two of them to rework the case and see where Tim and Raylan may have last ended up. 

“Let’s keep a cool head,” he told Rachel needlessly. “Most likely scenario is that they came across a pregnant woman and ended up handcuffed to the pretzel isle of some middle-of-nowhere convenience store.” 

“And the woman was an ex-girlfriend, but the baby was a Crowder,” Rachel added with a tight smile that suggested she, too, wasn’t about to betray the depths of her concern. 

Art clapped Rachel on the arm. “And... shit, Tim really doesn’t have anything to add, does he?”

\- 

Raylan supposed that, objectively, the mountains of Kentucky weren’t the worst space to be stranded. The scenery was beautiful: all great, towering trees piled along rolling hills, some boasting a smattering of red-orange leaves, while others dusted the earth with pine needles and fat pinecones. Everything was kissed by the mid-morning sun and blanketed by an expansive, cloudless blue sky. It was the kind of imagery Raylan might have missed about his home, if those electric Miami skylines hadn’t put it all out of his head.

But the scenery didn’t mitigate the situation. For Tim and his injury, Raylan couldn’t imagine a worse set of circumstances: a long, downhill, uneven climb spent tucked under the sweaty armpit of his fellow marshal. Raylan, no less, had barely uttered a word since he and Tim hit their stride.

It wasn’t because he found no need for conversation, or was somehow enjoying the scenery so much that the silence wasn’t self-imposed. Rather, he simply couldn’t conceive of an opener that wouldn’t send Tim, injured foot and all, hobbling over the first vertical drop they came upon. 

Finally, Raylan came to a conclusion: Tim was a professional and wouldn’t abide by an uninformed partner. If asked, he’d share the relevant data. It was the same principle Tim assumed when teamed with Raylan on some matter or another, when Raylan hadn’t read a file, but Tim kept him in the loop anyway. It wasn’t a question of whether or not Raylan learned a humiliating lesson, but of ensuring their objective’s success. Perhaps Tim didn’t like him for it, but he saw no benefit in taking up the issue as a cause. 

Whatever about or for however long, Raylan figured talking couldn’t be worse than thinking about it.

“We should talk,” Raylan said abruptly. Then he briefly pretended to close his eyes against the sunlight, though in truth, he didn’t want to be scared off the subject from any glare Tim could muster. “About what happened.”

“What’s your hurry?” Tim teased humorlessly. Some color had returned to his face during the two hours spent walking in near-complete silence. His foot ached like hell, but at least they weren’t moving at a snail’s pace. Raylan’s capacity as a crutch really and truly exceeded that of his marshalling--at least, as Tim might have told it. 

“I don’t know how to put this,” Raylan struggled with the words, but knew he had to get them out before Tim deferred again. “The way you--were--in the backseat. Did--”

“Would you believe I was taking a shit?” Tim interrupted, an out-of-place grin teasing his lips. 

“Uh,” Raylan hesitated, uncertain where Tim’s head was at. “No.”

Tim didn’t so much as raise his voice, but his response nonetheless shattered Raylan’s resolve. He sounded tired, as if they were in the office and Raylan was blocking his access to the coffee pot, bugging him for one favor or another. “Do I look like I wanna fucking talk about it?”

“Looks like it’s heavy on your mind, Tim,” Raylan pushed. It sounded like a lie even to his ears, because not two hours ago, Raylan had watched as Tim seemed to quietly rebuild himself. He’d rubbed the lines of distress from his brow and eyes, worked the terror from his limbs, and traded his needle-sharp nerves for a kind of hypervigilance that seemed entirely second nature. 

Tim smirked a little. It wasn’t often that Raylan did his song and dance to weasle something out of him, as the cowboy often returned with little to show for his efforts. “Tell you the truth, I’m a bit more concerned about our being stranded on a _mountain._ ”

Raylan used his boot to turn up some red-brown dust. “It’s got a road on it.”

Tim swept the back of his free hand over his mouth, coming away with a smear of fresh blood from his split lip. “Well things are looking up, then.”

“Tim,” Raylan tried again, and though he intended to be calm, there was a discernible bite in his words, a kind of demand twinned with immediacy that only ever came out sounding angry. _“I thought you were dead.”_ Raylan felt Tim still a little under his protective arm. “You _looked_ dead.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Raylan,” Tim practically chirped, loosening up again as he tried to simultaneously smooth and quicken his pace. “I’m not.” 

“I’m just worried you’re gonna... I’m just worried about you.”

“And _that_ worries _me._ ” Tim dismissed. Then, no longer chirping, he murmured, “Christ, just stop it already.”

It wasn’t an overt threat, and Raylan did not sense any danger in pursuing his answers, so he-- 

He stopped himself there. 

_Must be one hell of a concussion._

Despite his stern presence and impressive skill set, Tim rarely presented himself as a force to be reckoned with. When he told FBI Agent Barkley, _“I’m an idiot, ask anyone,”_ Barkley took him at his word and dragged Tim’s name through the mud right alongside Raylan’s. It got back to Tim’s friend at the Bureau, and they giggled about it over the phone. (This, only after he issued a long and sincere apology, then surmised loud enough for Raylan to hear, _We both got screwed by a cowboy, honey._ )

But Raylan knew better; he knew there wasn’t an _off_ switch for Tim. He knew that those who doubted his formidability never saw the bullet coming. 

And he knew--although there was no rifle in Tim’s hands or cap pulled backwards over his head--that Tim had issued a threat. 

“And stop _thinking about it,_ ” Tim pressed, not oblivious to the tiny, thoughtful frown on Raylan’s face. Without his hat--which he’d lost his hat in the melee of their ambush and subsequent kidnapping--Raylan couldn’t hide these things. “Would have thought you’d heard enough.”

“I was unconscious,” Raylan said, certain Tim had figured as much but willing, too, to settle any lingering doubts.

Tim gave a single, easy shrug. “Better that than you hearing and keeping dead-fucking-silent.”

Raylan had to will himself not to physically stop at that, or otherwise communicate to Tim how much the notion sickened him. He ended up ducking his head a little, squinting at the ground, and issuing a quiet, “Sorry.”

Tim didn’t miss a beat, returning coolly, “Don’t fucking apologize, there was nothing to be done to stop it.” The words sounded bitter to Raylan’s ears, and he suspected they tasted just as bad on Tim’s tongue. Tim continued, sounding oddly flippant, “Fella had a mind for it, anyhow, and got for free what he’d have had to pay a smart girl extra for.”

Raylan felt his insides turn to ice, and he had to wonder where the idea to press Tim for details even came from, considering he didn’t have the stomach for the answers. Whores were as common as trees in Harlan, but hearing Tim compare his ordeal with the kind of business transaction negotiated on the stained sheets of a trailer-park futon rattled his nerves. 

If Tim felt a similar tension in his gut, Raylan’s silence was to blame. With no small amount of good humor, Tim made an expectant face and egged gently, “Here’s where you say, _yeah, Tim, that’s fucked up._ Or, _don’t sell yourself short, Tim, you’re a real smart girl._ And then we’re done.” When again Raylan was thrown into speechlessness, Tim rolled his eyes and offered gamely, “Or we could high-five, if you want. I know how it’s a gas with your generation.”

“Tim...” The voice Raylan finally found was all too concerned, bordering on a whine, which didn’t surprise Raylan, who supposed he’d only ever learned to express the emotion outright from Art.

“What?” Tim’s eyes were half-lidded, his smile bemused. “I gotta hold your hand through this like every other goddamn thing? We get off this mountain, I’ll put you in touch with my therapist. She’ll hold your hand.”

“You have a therapist?” Raylan asked, unable to conceal his surprise. 

“I’m a modern guy,” Tim said, falling into their familiar pattern of jockeying questions with jokes. “I have a therapist, a Netflix subscription, a wok...”

Raylan was quiet, lost in thought--or, more likely, doubt--when Tim gave a soft snort of derision and answered truthfully, “It was required that I see one for a few months after I got back. I’ve still got her number so, yes: I have a therapist.”

They continued on with their slow, measured steps and self-imposed silence.

After stumbling over a stone masked with dust, Tim sighed loudly, tiredly. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Eastern Kentucky, I’d say,” Raylan offered, pausing for Tim to regain his footing. Tim promptly did so, though not quietly. He huffed out a frustrated grunt and showed a scowling face to match.

“ _Ashland_ is in Eastern Kentucky,” he groused. “This sure as shit isn’t Ashland. Be more specific.”

More than a little caught off guard, Raylan threw back, “Hey, white man. I’m not your spirit guide. I don’t know every rock and tree and creature.” 

A grin spread across the younger man’s face, but it didn’t break and show teeth; the twinge of pain in Tim’s split lip and the persistent ache of his foot effectively smothered it. The moment of levity seemed to satiate the men, anyway, and they continued their march over the rough, red-dirt road. 

As they walked, Tim stared at a rock formation scattered in a grassy patch near the road, wanting a rest but not willing to ask for it.

“Lemme take a break,” Raylan said, catching on just before they passed the space. With his free hand, he wiped his sweaty brow. “Sun’s getting to me.”

“We could probably fashion you a new hat out of leaves and twigs,” Tim offered wryly, permitting Raylan’s help to lower him onto one of the larger, nearer rocks. Raylan took a few steps more and found one in the shade of a red oak. He ran a hand through his hair, raking it back.

Tim wanted to tell Raylan he had seen someone pick up the handsome stetson and that the thing hadn’t been run over, but he couldn’t be certain. 

“Best I could do is a pirate hat, though,” Raylan mused, closing his eyes against the warm, sunny day. “And that wouldn’t provide much cover. A real design flaw, when you think about it.”

A quirk of Tim’s brows suggested he wasn’t interested in hearing Raylan ramble on in an effort to break the silence Tim had so masterfully built back up around them. Instead, Tim sorted himself on the rock, drawing one leg up to cross the other at the knee. He untied his shoe, then removed it and the lace all together in an effort to ease the pressure around his rapidly swelling ankle.

“That doesn’t look good,” Raylan observed, noting the flash of purple and blue.

“But it feels like a dream,” Tim replied curtly. He hardly flinched while putting his shoe back on. Then, Tim seemed to evaluate Raylan, looking the man up and down. It was unusually warm for October, but Tim wouldn’t attribute the sweat beading on Raylan’s brow to the weather alone. 

“Take your button-down off and wrap it like a turban,” Tim suggested, feeling more than a little compelled to mitigate the circumstances in which the two marshals found themselves, no matter how small the effect. “It’ll help.”

Raylan smirked a little. “You just want to laugh at me.”

“That’s only part of it,” Tim assured. “I am genuinely concerned, too, because I don’t think you’ve ever come into direct sunlight before.” He set his foot down and leaned forward. “I’m serious, come here.”

Raylan gave an exaggerated sigh and stood up. While walking to join Tim by the road, he quickly shed his jacket and button-down, then donned only his jacket over his thin gray t-shirt. He surrendered his shirt then settled onto a smaller rock at Tim’s feet, permitting his fellow marshal to keep seated comfortably. 

“Your neck is burnt,” Tim murmured while folding and twisting the shirt into the desired shape before straightening it atop Raylan’s head. “Which means no strictly-turban today. Mullet turban, though, oughta work.” 

His deft hands worked quickly and before Raylan could break off a wisecrack, Tim asked, “Too tight?”

“Feels good, actually,” Raylan said, noting the slight puckering at the front which did, in fact, afford him some shade. The tails of his shirt swept neatly over his neck, shielding it from the sun and any further burning.

“You do look stupid, though,” Tim said in the same dry tone that sent Raylan back to the office, to stakeouts, and the odd drink after hours. “And I am laughing.”

“Internally?”

“And eternally. Back on your feet, huh?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Raylan groused with good humor. “ _Back on your foot._ ”

He stooped and curled an arm around Tim’s back. Losing his own footing among the myriad of stones littering the earth, Raylan lurched forward, crowding Tim with his torso and jacket. 

“Sorry,” Raylan said, pulling back. He had some comment about the two of them being out of commission on the tip of his tongue, but lost it. “What the--” 

Drawing his hand back from where it had slid up the back of Tim’s shirt, Raylan examined a mostly clear, sticky substance coating his fingertips. He stared at it. Tim stared at it.

“Wipe your hand off,” Tim ordered, his voice as hard as the rock he slumped back on. In a half-second that seemed to drag like an entire summer afternoon, the hairs on Tim’s neck prickled to life and his cheeks warmed red as he waited for his partner to respond. Raylan, mouth slightly agape, looked around and, helplessly, did not further test his hand. 

“Where--”

“On my shirt is _fine,_ just fucking--”

Raylan stooped to the ground and swept his hand a number of times over the cool green grass while Tim watched, silent. For good measure, Raylan brushed the hand dry against his jeans. He glanced back to Tim, who had come back from his brush with absolute mortification and looked only mildly annoyed.

“You want my jacket?” he asked, nodding once and gesturing, “To... clean your-”

“Keep it,” Tim cut him off. “If we don’t reach anyone or aren’t otherwise killed, you’ll need it when the temperature drops tonight.” Tim spoke as he twisted and swept his own hand up the back of his shirt, grimacing when his fingers, too, came away sticky. 

“It’s okay,” Raylan said, meaning the use of his jacket. It came just a beat too late, however, that it sent Tim into a huff. The man glared openly at Raylan as he wiped the excess discharge on a flat side of the rock. 

“It’s because of the heat,” he gritted out, getting to his feet. Raylan dutifully came to his support, though was admittedly more mindful of his hands. 

Their walking again fell under a spell of silence until Tim, scratching at one of the bruises on his forehead with his free hand, sighed and asked, “You were nineteen when you left Harlan, right?”

“Thereabouts, yeah.”

“What took you so goddamn long?”

Raylan didn’t have an opportunity to answer. Over three miles away, with an impressive crack and an echoing wail, their intended tomb burst into flames. 

\- 

The garage was a bloodbath. Everyone from forensics to local PD were careful of their steps, as blood splatter patterns crisscrossed, intersected, and pooled together into an awful and damning picture. The lack of footprints or interruption left all those gathered with only vague assumptions as to motive or reason. Rachel and Art, on the other hand, were concerned with the potential for two additional victims. 

It was the location Tim and Raylan had visited the previous night, angling for their fugitive. 

“Well,” Art sighed, sidestepping the lanky body of one of the victims. “At least we know they were doing their jobs. This here is Kyle Clemens.” 

“And his cousin,” Rachel said, pointing to a similarly lean frame. Rachel remembered his face from one of the files Tim had pulled--freckled like a cartoon character, straight across the nose and cheeks--but it was the weapon resting unused across his chest that caught her eye. It was such an old, heavy piece Rachel wondered if it was an _actual musket_. It looked otherworldly. 

Two other bodies were scattered around the property. One was was situated on the front porch, the other just right of the open garage, limp and lifeless in the unattended flower bed. 

None would have proven a difficult shot for either Tim or Raylan, but the bloodbath was something Rachel and Art could only hope neither marshal was party to. The scene had only recently been discovered, however, and the ballistics and forensic work were only in their initial stages. 

Before Rachel and Art were at a loss, however, they were on a warpath. 

The garage--Rachel couldn’t help but think of it as an open tomb--was affixed to a run down house on a small piece of property squared away a few miles off some backwoods road. On the opposite side of that faraway road were newly developed ranch houses and a home going for a quarter million, easy. Only two other houses were nestled in the woods near it, and none of the occupants claimed to have seen or heard anything the previous night. This didn’t stop Rachel’s incessant questioning of all those even remotely near the property, or Art’s efforts at a convenience store some twenty miles away, where he very nearly brought the kid on shift to tears after berating him for the store’s lack of surveillance equipment.

Some hours later, Rachel found Art upon her second walk-around of the property. “I’m not sitting on these nerves, Chief,” she told him. “Let’s check their places.” 

Art lobbed her a pitiable look. “If they were there, Rachel, they’d have called.” 

Undeterred, Rachel jutted out her chin and returned, “Let’s check to see if they left in a hurry.” 

She didn’t honestly believe Tim and Raylan had gunned down the four men and then disappeared of their own volition. The shots were haphazard, first of all. Center-mass was regulation, but gut-shots were unheard of between the two marshals. Even on his worst day, Tim could still put a bullet between a man’s eyes, and Raylan was no slouch even if a necessary quick-draw forfeited his best aim. 

Rachel considered all this as she drove to Tim’s apartment, glancing every so often at directions on her phone to an address she’d had to retrieve from the office. She arrived at a simple, red-brick block of apartments situated in an older building. She’d passed a nearby running park and a bar on her way, and supposed Tim got ample use out of each.

She showed her badge to the landlord, and was surprised when his eyes lit up and he revealed that he she was familiar to him and yes, _of course_ he knew her name. After two flights of stairs, Rachel learned that Tim’s landlord--Mahit--had a brother--Vishesh--who owned a restaurant not four blocks away, and they’d eat together regularly along with Vishesh’s sons, with Tim sharing “cowboy stories.” 

“Cowboy stories?”

Mahit waved a hand distractedly. “U.S. Marshals, yes. But like cowboys.” 

Rachel nodded; he wasn’t wrong. 

“Did you happen to see Tim yesterday? Last night?”

Mahit shook his head, then supplied as an afterthought, “But that is not unusual.”

“How’s so?” Rachel asked as they reached Tim’s unit. She stepped aside and allowed Mahit to select one from his set of master keys, and open the door. 

The landlord gave her a curious smile, suddenly uncertain that this was the woman Tim described as a very good friend. “He likes camping.” 

Mahit left Rachel to venture about the apartment.

Save for his neatly pressed clothes in the small bedroom closet, Tim seemed to live out of a duffle bag and in a five-foot radius of his couch. Books and DVDs flanked the television set in neat stacks, ranging from _On Killing_ to _The Hobbit_ and _Apocalypse Now_ to _Wall-E_. 

He lived, too, like a man not expecting company. 

On the coffee table sat a box of tissues, a small container of lotion, and Tim’s personal laptop, still open. Rachel didn’t dare satisfy her curiosity; instead, she closed the laptop and used one of the tissues to pick up the bottle of lotion, then carried it to the bathroom and placed it in the cabinet under the sink. The bathroom opened to the bedroom and there, she noticed that while Tim’s bed was made--all tight corners and starched sheets--the covers and single pillow were in a lived-in pile in the few feet of floor space between the bed and the interior wall. The self-styled trench was outfitted with a bedside lamp and, lost in the twisted blanket, another book: _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows._

On the whole, Rachel supposed she ought to be grateful. If sleeping on the floor and delving into a world of fantasy--of one variation or another--were the worst of Tim’s habits, he might as well be teaching a life betterment course to the likes of Raylan Givens.

But in resting her eyes upon the lifeless, came-with-the-apartment furniture and collections of things Tim used to take himself out of his own reality, Rachel couldn’t help feeling a little heartbroken. 

At her hip, Rachel’s phone buzzed. 

It was Art calling to report that he’d found a wad of cash in the dresser he doesn’t think anyone would be wise to leave behind before skipping town. “Even Raylan,” he added tiredly. “Anything at Tim’s?”

“I was hoping for more files, something-- _anything_ \--he might have brought home from work,” Rachel admitted, leaving Tim’s bedroom and resting in the doorway to once again survey the sparse living space. “There’s nothing.”

Before leaving the apartment, Rachel opened the hall closet. One winter jacket hung in the space, its length brushing a pair of shiny black shoes resting on the floor. In one corner was a large, well-worn military duffle that looked as though it had never been unpacked--let alone touched--in the year since Tim’s arrival in Kentucky. Opposite the satchel was a deconstructed tent, bundled together with a knotted piece of nylon rope, its material frayed and a streaked with mud and dirt. 

\- 

“Shit,” Raylan swore, instinctively ducking his head. They had easily cleared the range of the explosion, but the sound seemed to vibrate over the hills and hand at the two marshals’ feet. Tim made no effort to duck and take cover; rather, he turned and watched the smoke climb the hills and streak the sky like a skidmark.

“Let’s go,” he said, inclining his head towards the billowing smoke. 

“What? _Go back there_?”

“They’ve already fucked up once,” Tim said, getting impatient. Without Raylan as his crutch, he couldn’t take the long strides he knew they’d need to return to the car before their assailants did. “Think about it: we don’t know where the fuck we are. We’ve been walking for hours and haven’t seen so much as a tin can. Suddenly, half a day later, the bomb is triggered? These dipshits have been sent back to make sure the goddamn thing was done. They’ll have a car, _guns_ , and if we can get the jump on ‘em, we can take it all back.”

Although, in Tim’s estimation, it was the kind of fucking horrible idea Raylan managed to come up with most days before his second coffee, the senior marshal didn’t seem taken with it. 

Raylan squinted up at the smoke, considering. “It ain’t safe.”

“Funny, I thought I’d sort of implied that. Guns, exploding cars, returning kidnappers and all.” Tim wet his lips, tasting tangy blood in the crevice of the cut. “My money’s on the explosion being on a remote trigger. You can buy that shit anywhere, but it isn’t idiot-proof. These dumbasses probably forgot the remote, went back, and just now came into range.” Practically hearing the gears turn in Raylan’s head gave Tim the incentive to issue his last push. “Come’on, man. If we don’t head them off, they’ll just come by us here--seeing as our bodies aren’t fire roasted in the car--and they’ll know to comb the mountain. We’re dead anyway.”

Even while supporting Tim’s weight, Raylan still managed to get one hand hitched to his hip, adopting his usual stance for contemplation. “They might not even come back. This could be a huge waste of time.”

“Fine,” Tim said, shrugging away from Raylan. “You keep walking so as _not to waste time,_ and I’ll go back on my own.” Tim put his full weight on his injured foot, trying--and _failing_ \--to mask the intense pain the gesture caused. He took eight steps. His cheeks were flushed red by the fourth. 

With a quiet “goddamnit,” Raylan reluctantly muscled into place under Tim, walking the younger man across the street to start their journey over. Although nothing seemed to change besides the direction of the breeze, Raylan seemed less inclined to hold his tongue as well as he had during their descent. “You looking to kill that guy?”

Tim hobbled as best he could while pinned to Raylan’s side like a thistle caught on wool. If his dignity weren’t an issue, Tim half-wondered if they’d make better time with Raylan carrying him bridal- or potato sack-style. “And get an Internal Affairs investigation of my very own? No thanks, I’m content to watch you drown in yours.” 

“That doesn’t sound all too sincere,” Raylan mused.

“Maybe it ain’t,” Tim conceded, half-convinced he’d have gotten Raylan’s complete support if that had been his bid all along--not the car, not a way off the mountain, but bloodlust. A body to drop in the red-dirt, however he could get it there. 

They made better time in their return leg, though the smell of fuel and burnt, smoldering faux-leather assaulted their noses and made breathing a generally unpleasant task. Both men were drenched in sweat when, finally, the carcass of the car came into view. 

“Shit,” Raylan marvelled. The top of the car was gone, the insides blackened. The dashboard, steering wheel, and clutch had all melted and cooled into what was left of the base, forming a strange, black, porous landscape. The trunk, Raylan noted, was completely sunken in. 

“If it makes you feel any better,” Tim began, “You’d probably have suffocated and died a while before the blast.”

Raylan’s eyes were set on the trunk, and his mind elsewhere. He managed a distracted “Huh?” and a noncommittal “Yeah, of course.”

“Hey.” Tim tightened his grip around Raylan’s shoulder and ushered him away, leading with his good foot. They rediscovered the path they’d taken earlier while first escaping the car. Even only five hours later, the space was more strange than familiar. 

Tim stopped short of their earlier cover; their efforts would have to be carried out swiftly, which meant that burying themselves under the cover of the seemingly endless forest--while an attractive idea--would only hinder their efforts and jeopardize their objective. 

“We jump ‘em,” Tim said plainly, finding that getting Raylan’s attention _now_ was suddenly like pulling teeth. “Do it like you would if you had your piece.” Tim mimed a pistol with his hand and let off a few wild rounds. “Project confidence.”

Raylan gave him a flat look. “I think the confidence comes with the piece.”

“Some cowboy you are.”

After a final glance towards the ruined car, Raylan scrubbed the palms of his hands over his face. He was bone tired--they both were--but even through his exhaustion and dread, Raylan felt adrenaline flood his brain and awaken his senses. “It’s--ah, as good a plan as we could hope for, Tim, but--”

“Foot’s fine,” Tim interrupted. “I’m good to go. And unless you keep your balls in that hat, can I assume the same for you?” 

Raylan sighed, finally resigned to the fact that he’d agreed to take part in Tim’s wild effort and, if he valued their lives, he ought to commit. “We coming at them with sticks and rocks?” 

“I hadn’t thought of sticks.” 

Tim knew Raylan’s concern was not unjustified; it was a risky move, but if he felt like he had an equal partner going at it, Raylan wouldn’t be so hesitant. So Tim swallowed his pain and forced his expression into one of smooth determination, and stood tentatively on his own two feet.

“The official plan,” Tim began, “Is to steal the car and get the hell out of dodge.”

“And unofficially?” Raylan asked, eyebrows raised.

“We steal the car and run them over. And if they have guns, you get them to shoot themselves.”

“Just how am I meant to do that?”

“You’ve gotta bring something to the table, Raylan.” 

“You know,” Raylan snapped back, taking off the makeshift turban and using it to dry his face and neck. “You smell a bit too much like my armpit to be sassing me.”

“Here,” Tim produced the shoelace from his pants pocket and held it out to Raylan, trading it for the shirt. Finding a dry patch, Tim dried his own face--and hands.

Raylan held the shoelace expectantly. “You’re going to need to divulge a few more details with this one, Tim.”

“Choke someone out. Let’s see those mad ninja skills.”

Tim spun the ruined plaid shirt like a gym towel he intended to snap, but didn’t. He passed it back to Raylan, who chuckled softly. 

“We’re not dumbshits,” Tim said, wetting his lips. “So don’t... don’t be one if this goes south.” 

Raylan had been one for fatalistic pep-talks, so he donned a haggard, sun-beaten smile. “You know,” he said, eyeing Tim as he hobbled purposefully a few feet closer to the road, “I’m brain damaged enough to think we have a chance, here.”

“Inspiring last words,” Tim observed, quirking a tight smile. “I was going to go with, ‘Hope you don’t die.’”

“You, too,” Raylan offered, watching intently as Tim chose and took cover behind a tree thick enough to easily obscure his presence from either direction. The pain in his ankle had not lessened, but he managed to move swiftly enough with determination driving his steps. He uncovered a rock half-buried in the cool brown earth at the base of the tree, then held it in his hands, testing the weight. Tim told Raylan to find a similar hiding place on the other side. Raylan first went about finding a similar rock.

They were silent in their positions, and nearly perfectly still. It wasn’t twenty minutes later that both men heard the sound of a vehicle making its way up the mountain. 

\- 

It was well into late afternoon when Art and Rachel returned to the office with nothing to show for themselves. Art had local departments shitting their shorts over making quick work of the crime scene, but even with a rush on the ballistics reports, it would take time. 

Art assured Rachel of an actual canvassing in the morning, but she kept tight to her desk and her phone, making calls, pulling data on the dead, and expanding the web of connections first built up by Tim and Raylan.

She spent ten minutes trying to decipher Tim’s chicken scratch before determining the slip of paper she’d retrieved from his desk wasn’t case-related at all; it was a grocery list. It was only then that she removed the ever-present phone from the crook of her neck, pushed away from her desk, and sought respite in a cup of coffee. 

The pot was cold, but there were so few people left in the office that Rachel didn’t think the hour merited a fresh brew, so she poured what was left and stuck it in the microwave. She watched the little mug spin, a U.S. Marshals emblem turning into view and then disappearing once, twice... Rachel ended up nearly boiling the coffee, and no matter how much cream and sugar she deposited in the small cup, it still tasted burnt. 

Returning to her desk, Rachel sipped the coffee absently, her mind with Tim and Raylan--where they were, how they were, and how to confuse the two. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Art, who called out to her, exiting his office while donning his jacket and making for the door. “We’ve got an anonymous tip on a car leaving the scene of the shooting of Raylan’s guy--red, rusted out, old model Chevy--and a call to the local PD out in Morgan County. Woman outside of West Liberty called in on a car matching our description off of I-64. Said she thought there was a young guy incapacitated in back.” 

Rachel nodded sharply. “West Liberty,” she repeated, abandoning her coffee, grabbing her jacket and keys and reaching the door ahead of Art. “I’m there.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Language!_ Raylan and Tim get their shit together only to be left holding it as they find themselves in for another long wait.

Raylan drew in a steadying breath. The rock in his right hand was a poor substitute for a gun, but he supposed people have been killing each other for hundreds of thousands of years, and who was he to turn up his nose to tradition? 

The bigger man--Raylan only caught a glimpse--seemed triumphant as they circled the decimated Chevy in which they’d first visited the mountain. “What did I tell you? We wasted half the day coming back here. Jesus.”

“Does it smell like burnt bodies to you?” The other voice was unsure. 

The driver and his friend explored the area, each keeping the other in his sights and speaking only in hushed tones. 

“I’m fucking serious,” the unsure voice was adamant now. “They ain’t here.”

“No shit--they’re _ash._ ”

Raylan, his back flush with the tree, turned until he could spy Tim across the way. His eyes were trained on the bigger man, walking easily back towards his side of the car, protesting the slimmer man’s call to begin a search. 

Raylan wet his lips. If Tim went for it, he had to be ready in turn, and get a jump on the anxious man already combing the treeline. _If he turns,_ Raylan thought, hearing the man move closer and closer to his cover, _I’ll tackle him. And the rock will see to itself._

As the man in Tim’s sights showed his back to him, Tim made his move. He darted from the treeline, keeping low, and took his chance to surprise the man by bringing a rock down on the crook of his elbow as he turned, gun in hand. The glock went sailing from his hand as he shouted in pain, and Tim quickly cleared it. After a second’s scramble in the dirt, he took aim at the man’s heart and did not waver. 

In the dark at Kyle Clemens’ cousins’ place, Tim hadn’t got a good look at either man. In the car, he’d been forced to chew the back seat, but caught glimpses--more and more as darkness broke for light--of the two men: the driver, lean and possessing soft features. In one inopportune stop in the darkness, Tim had unblinkingly studied him as the man stared, moon-faced, at Tim’s misfortune. Grunts and moans overlayed every memory in his mind and for a moment Tim saw only the neat stitching in the seats--felt his face and thighs grate against it, even--heard only the squelching of slick skin against skin, and tasted only blood on his tongue. 

Of the man who assaulted him, Tim couldn’t conjure up so much as a mole tucked under a double chin. The man was big, he knew that much. He knew the weight of him, the particular scrape of his fingernails, the catch in his breath. 

Finally stood face to face, however, Tim couldn’t bring himself to commit the man to memory. It was as though his heart was finally full of hurt and ache, and his brain sought to spare him. 

Not grasping the color of the man’s eyes or the curve of his heavy brow didn’t keep Tim from leveling his gun up for a clean shot. Knowing the man’s face wouldn’t have stopped Tim from taking the shot, even. 

Raylan did that. 

“Tim...”

Some yards away at the edge of the treeline and behind the smoldering Chevy, Raylan was on his knees. Although the driver sported a fresh, bloodied cut over his left eye, he was still in possession of his weapon. Further, he seemed to take great joy in pressing the thing to the back of Raylan’s skull. Yellow teeth cut into an ugly grin, but Tim hardly registered them. He set his eyes on Raylan, who looked rightfully sorry, and mouthed as much.

_Shit._ Tim set his jaw and did not lower his weapon. 

“Charlie,” the driver said, jutting out his chin. “Take back yer fuckin’ gun.”

Tim took a matching step forward just as the friend--Charlie--lurched to meet him. The space between Charlie and his own gun shortened considerably. 

“Sh _i_ t,” Charlie said, the word steeped in amusement despite his precarious position at the action end of his stolen weapon. He surrendered his step, and with a little more distance on his side, he raked his small eyes over Tim’s figure. “You can still walk? Maybe we should go for a few more rounds, huh? I could do from the front; you’re kinda pretty.”

“Thanks,” Tim said, perhaps only in an effort not to be bullied into silence. “Tell your friend to drop his weapon, and we’ll take you both in alive. You’ve got my word.” 

“That ain’t how this is gonna work, sweetcheeks,” Charlie laughed, cradling his aching arm against his gut. 

“Ain’t it?” Tim echoed slowly, his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips.

“Oh,” Charlie groaned in mock-delight, “Do that for me again.”

“Keep it up.” Tim’s warning couldn’t have come out any calmer than if he’d served it with tea and milk. He took a short side-step, better angling himself against Charlie, but nonetheless losing the cover afforded to him by the damaged car. 

“You got ten seconds to hand it over, faggot,” the driver spat, not amused with his friend’s antics. The marshal had moved into his line of sight and he figured he could get a shot off if needed. 

“Calm your shit, Rob,” Charlie grinned. “He knows the score. Just want a bit of your own back, huh, fella?”

Tim had his gun trained on his assailant, but his eyes on Raylan. As the driver continued to prod Raylan with his pistol and lob threats, Tim issued his own: he slowly raised his gun. Were he to shoot, Charlie would take a bullet in the brain rather than the heart. 

The driver shouted and Raylan gritted his teeth, feeling the cold metal of the pistol brace against his skull. The look in Tim’s eye was so focused, so strictly pinned to the friend that in all the time they’d worked together, Raylan felt the first twinge of doubt. Tim might very well fail to back him up. The gears in Raylan’s head weren’t moving so fast as to recognize that not matter what Tim did--shoot the friend or not--he and Raylan were little better than they’d been six hours ago--dead, save for the details. 

Tim might shoot Charlie. Undoubtedly, the driver would take Tim out, then Raylan, or he’d let one fly into Raylan’s head now, just to make a point. These facts came to Raylan too slowly for his liking; it wasn’t as though he had time to consider his options. 

Raylan opened his mouth, willing to risk the gunman’s thin patience to reach out to his fellow marshal, to put another voice on the mountain top that wasn’t angry or triumphant. 

He didn’t get the chance.

_“Just a bit.”_

Tim swung his arm just wide of Charlie, keeping the height, and took a shot at the man threatening Raylan so fast that Raylan’s mouth still hung open, a plea for calm on his lips. Tim’s shot was clean, save for a spray of blood that got caught up in Raylan’s hair as the driver’s body absorbed the hit and was sent twisting, crumpling to the earth. Charlie turned and stared over the scene, horrified, and Tim was ready for him when he turned back around, enraged. He wanted to shoot, but settled for crashing the butt of the gun into the side of the man’s head-- _hard_ , so much so that Tim nearly fell after him as the man hit ground with a satisfying thud. Raylan was on on his feet and crowded over Charlie in an instant, using Tim’s shoelace as makeshift cuffs.

Above him, Raylan thought he heard a soft snort of amusement. 

“Coulda gone south,” Raylan said, staring at the great mass of a man breathing heavily on the ground, and Tim, smaller, standing over him. Neither bothered to check the driver; Tim’s shot spoke for itself. The man was dead.

Tim didn’t move. “Maybe.” He wet his lips again, like Charlie had asked. “But it’s better this way.” 

Raylan eyed the gash in Charlie’s head. It bled steadily against the dirt road and made Raylan think how close he had come to a similar fate. “Well, I ain’t complaining.”

“He looked back at me,” Tim said, and although his voice was raw, he sounded self-assured. “He’d fucked up, and he knew that.”

Raylan finished his last knot around Charlie’s wrists. Something in Tim’s voice sounded off, broken and scattered, as if Raylan was listening to him through a bad cell connection. “Tim...”

“Yeah, Raylan. It was what it looked like, in the car.” Tim spoke succinctly and without ever taking his eyes off his wheezing assailant. His grip was white-knuckle tight on the gun pinned to his side. Raylan glanced up at him, uneasy, because over the past half-day, Tim had given every indication that, just as Raylan was not to ask about the backseat of the car, Tim was not going to speak of it himself. 

“They’d knocked you out and fit you into the trunk--worried, I guess, that you’d wake up and give ‘em hell. I got rowdy in back and they sorted me out. Well--just Charlie here. Driver pulled over once, though. Got out to watch. We all had a good laugh about it.” With the gun still in hand, Tim rubbed his forehead with the flat of his fist, unintentionally smearing flecks of Charlie’s blood just under his hairline. Raylan pursed his lips and said nothing. This was Tim unravelling. 

Whether he felt pressed by Raylan to continue or not, Tim did, low and hoarse, almost as though he was speaking only to himself. “ _And yes,_ it hurt, it hurt every goddamned time, _and yes,_ I’m fucking humiliated, _and,_ ” Tim flexed his grip around the gun. He took a moment to bring himself back in, smoothed the lines that had come to mar his brow, and settled his grimace into a strange little smile. He’d caught himself. 

“It isn’t the end of the world, right?” Not certain Tim was actively addressing him, Raylan nevertheless did not want the junior marshal to settle for his own answer.

Raylan swept his palms over the dirt road. He was still on his knees next to Charlie. “We’re still alive,” he said. “S’more than I expected six hours ago, when you scared the shit out of me screaming about car bombs.” 

Tim sort of laughed and cocked his head, considering. Then he raked his hair back and took in the quick work he’d made of their kidnappers. “Shit,” he pronounced. “It’s fine.”

Raylan did not respond, though it was not for a lack of sympathy and anger on Tim’s behalf. Rather, Tim spoke so plainly about the ordeal that the means of how to comfort him was lost on Raylan. While circling the man to take in a fuller view, Tim’s ankle nearly gave out and he settled on the ground before falling to it. When he next looked to Raylan, it was at eye-level.

“Anyway,” Tim said, rolling up his pants leg and gingerly examining all matter of damage he had imparted on his busted ankle, “Don’t tell Art.”

Raylan sat back on his heels, surprised. Charlie wasn’t going anywhere. “Tim, no. You need--you _have_ to tell Art.”

Tim shrugged; he had no intention of arguing a moot point. 

“It’s part of the case,” Raylan pressed. “No one’ll believe you sat quietly in back.” 

“Well you wouldn’t be one to tell them otherwise, would you?” Tim returned fire and tried not to be phased by the flash of shame that darkened Raylan’s eyes. Tim was quiet for a time, then laughed, and met Raylan’s bemused expression with a smirk that fit strangely around his split lip. “That’s not it, is it? You’re worried if I don’t tell Art or someone who _wants_ to care, I’m going to end up crying on _your_ shoulder.”

“Maybe,” Raylan answered quietly, honestly. He had no reservations about rebuffing Tim--hurtfully so--if the result was a better one than silence and secrets. 

Tim snorted. “I won’t come to you for anything,” he said. “That’s a fucking promise.”

It wasn’t said with malice. 

Raylan got to his feet and made for the car, finding the keys in the driver’s seat. After some digging, Raylan uncovered a cell phone. He walked a few awkward paces, searching for a signal. While placing a call to Art, he watched Tim nudge the injured man, then shrug and turn away. 

“Art? Yeah, yeah, save it. Me and Tim are alive, like it or not. We got in a van with strangers, what do you think? We don’t know where the hell we are and Tim can’t walk too well. Mind tracing this call and sending a car?” Raylan listened for a moment to Art’s indecipherable rant, then cut in, “We got one dead body, by the way. A second needs an ambulance. Tim--ah--probably needs an ambulance, too. Say hi, Tim.” Raylan leveled the phone with Tim.

Tim shot him a look but offered an easy, “Hi, Art,” to satisfy Raylan.

“ _Don’t,_ ” Tim warned after Raylan had ended the message and pocketed the phone. It didn’t matter that Raylan couldn’t bring himself to meet Tim’s eyes, because the latter was focused on the car. “They got anything of use in there? Bottled water, flare gun? Check the glove compartment for ibuprofen, would you?” 

Raylan ducked back into the car and produced one half-empty bottle of water, a warm case of beer, and a handful of something that had him smiling ruefully. 

“Hate to say this, Tim, but we were abducted by a roving gang of stereotypes. No Advil. Can you manage with Oxy?” He tossed the small prescription bottle and Tim caught it, then turned it over in his hands thoughtfully. 

He passed it back to Raylan, having chosen not to partake. “Tears up my stomach.” 

“Beer, then?”

Tim leveled Raylan with a flat look. _We’re still on the job_ went unsaid. “I just asked for Advil, Raylan. Hell, you gonna offer me a turn sucking on the exhaust pipe, too?”

“We got a long wait here,” Raylan said, annoyed with Tim for only the usual reasons: his taking Raylan literally. “You wanna sit in the car, get comfortable?” 

Using the confiscated glock, Tim prodded the unconscious man between the shoulderblades. “I think I’ll watch the prisoner,” he said. “As you and I don’t have the best track record.” 

Raylan pursed his lips in a way that suggested he was finally losing his cool. He strode purposefully over and handed Tim the water bottle. Tim took a healthy gup--not minding how warm the water was--and offered it, still uncapped, to Raylan. 

“You need it,” Tim said. “You were basically cooking in that trunk.” He deliberately chose not to carry on mentioning the trouble Raylan had taken acting as Tim’s crutch for several hours. Raylan wasn’t so generous. 

“Hard labor, though,” he said, “earns me a beer.” He strode back to the car and descended upon the six pack. Tim took another swig of water as he watched Raylan crack open a bottle.

Tim shifted in the dirt and then laid back, hands behind his head, eyes closed to the late-afternoon light. To alleviate the pain in his foot, he kept it elevated atop Charlie’s shoulder. It looked for all the world that the restive marshal had the great slab of a man pinned to the dirt with only his heel. 

Beer bottle at his lip, Raylan glanced between the dead driver, bullet hole placed expertly between his still-open eyes, and the young marshal who put it there. Tim looked content with what he’d done--at ease with it, even. All he seemed to be wanting for was a nap. 

“There are bears up here, you know,” Raylan said, pausing to take another swig. “They don’t start hibernating until later this month.” Why he wanted to rattle Tim after all they’d been through was a mystery to him, but he said it anyway and curiously awaited some reaction. 

Tim didn’t even blink or sit up. “If that’s your way of suggesting we rig the bodies up into trees, you’re on your own. I did my part in this mess.” 

Raylan heard soft breathing and realized Tim--not twenty minutes after killing a man--had fallen asleep. 

Although he’d rather have his beer cold and a bar to set it on rather than the filthy dashboard of an unmarked car, Raylan took what he could get and chanced himself a moment to reflect on--judging by the sun’s dipping position in the sky--what would soon be twenty-four hours worth of mishaps. 

First and foremost, he regretted asking Tim along as backup. Without him, Raylan supposed he’d either be dead or much further down the mountain, concerning himself only with bears. He was glad not to be dead--and knew he owed Tim for that--but nonetheless, if he’d only just gone alone... 

He regretted, too, not getting out in front of Tim’s thoughts and offering something better, something more sound than Tim’s dismissal of his trials. Instead, after pulling Tim from the car, Raylan hoofed it back to the road, telling himself he was curious about the explosives and that Tim deserved his space. He grimaced when he remembered the state he’d left his friend in: pants still loose about his slim hips, hands still knotted together. Rayan swore and upended his second beer, then cracked open a third. 

He wondered if Tim had stared at the back of Raylan’s head as he jogged away, incredulous, before attempting to cut his binds himself. 

After nearly an hour of napping, Tim sat up. He was worrying the inside of his lip and looked a little unsure. Raylan very nearly called to him, thinking perhaps Tim had sustained a head injury like Raylan had, and perhaps sleeping only aggravated his condition. But suddenly, Tim was moving; he resolutely took up the gun and scooted closer to Charlie. He dug his hand into the unconscious man’s back pockets, then wedged them down the front--first back left, then the right.

Raylan stood uncertainly from his place half-inside, half-outside the drivers seat. “Tim, what the hell--”

Tim had collected the man’s wallet and was methodically searching through it. No ID, no drivers license. Some cash, no numbers. Raylan watched Tim work the thing over until, finally, what he found seemed to satisfy his curiosity: a condom, still wrapped, in one of the wallet’s secret folds. 

“Asshole,” Tim murmured, putting the wallet together again and chucking it at Charlie’s head. Then, quietly, “Christ.”

Tim massaged the bridge of his nose a moment, like Raylan had seen him do when frustrated or annoyed. When he drew his hand back, his expression was completely unreadable. He might as well have been reading a list of license plate numbers off his computer screen at work, for all he seemed to care. “No cash or credit cards,” Tim said aloud, his voice steady. “I was going to call for pizza.” 

He nudged Charlie with the man’s own piece. “You are a terrible date.” Hands to the back of his head, Tim again returned to resting on his back, staring up at the darkening sky.

The beer sat like bile in Raylan’s stomach. He drank more, only satisfied when his fourth bottle was empty. He threw it against the husk of the torched car, watched it shatter, and vaguely noticed how its echo mimicked the blast they’d heard earlier. This time, Tim did spare a curious glance. 

“Well aren’t you just the rowdiest drunk on the mountaintop,” Tim hummed, unimpressed. 

“Why the hell aren’t you upset!” Raylan snapped at him, his short and worn temper finally lost. “Jesus, Tim! If you could see yourself!” 

Tim propped himself up on his elbows and with one hand, absently smoothed his shirt front. It was hard with dried blood and sweat. “You know, I _was_ a little peeved the entire goddamn day we were trapped in that goddamn car,” he said coolly, though his profanity betrayed his nervous edge. Raylan had previously only been anxious speaking with Tim--pitiable, even--but never truly belligerent or angry on his behalf. Tim rolled his aching shoulders, pretending to take offense to Raylan’s accusations, and muttered amusedly under his breath, “Begrudge me my professionalism.”

“That shit ain’t cute,” Raylan snarled, staring hard at Tim as though he’d caught the younger man in a lie.

“Don’t tell me I’m not cute.” 

The joke hung in the air between the two men, with Raylan not giving an inch. Where Tim’s dark humor could usually twist a chuckle out of him, here he gave nothing. 

Tim rolled his eyes. “Hell, Raylan, if you’ve had enough of my company,” he threw an errant arm towards the car, “There’s the trunk.”

“Oh, _for fucks sake._ ” A scowl darkened Raylan’s face and he rose from the car, looking for all the world like Tim had thrown down the gauntlet, and there was nothing but time until the two men came to blows. Like a bar brawl--Raylan wanted to punch his offender in the face enough until he agreed, loose-toothed and bleeding, _yes, I am an asshole._ Surprisingly, none of the bar fights in which Raylan had been a participant seemed to end so neatly. 

“It was a fucking shitty thing that happened,” Tim tried, but was cut off by Raylan’s objections, though Tim might have termed them _hysterics._

“It was a little more than that!”

“Thank you,” Tim drawled, his tone flat and untouchable. “That is some worthwhile input, Raylan. Here with my gaping asshole, I hadn’t thought anything was amiss.”

Raylan’s jaw set like stone as he stared angrily at his friend. “Christ, Tim. Jesus Christ.”

Annoyed and feeding off Raylan’s energy, Tim did something stupid. He brought the gun to his head and pressed its lip just above his ear. Raylan fell absolutely silent. 

“All right,” Tim said, his words thick with sarcasm and daring, “Tell me how great a fucking tragedy this has been. What a fucking trial.” He lowered the gun, inwardly disgusted with himself and furious at Raylan, though his face was the picture of impassivity. While the glock rested in the dirt, Raylan still looked unnerved. His eyes darted between the marshal and his weapon, anxious about the short space between them. 

Tim didn’t consider the sight he made outside of the firearm: bloodied, bruised, snarling with his split lip, ass planted on the ground because he didn’t think he could manage standing. “It was a fucking shitty thing that happened,” he repeated, willing Raylan--and himself--to believe it. “Or do you still want to convince me otherwise?”

“No,” Raylan murmured. Slowly, as though he meant not to startle a wild animal, he rounded the car and disappeared down the road a ways. 

Tim was still angry, but more than that he didn’t want to be drawn out again by Raylan’s mismanaged concern. He scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing off crusted blood and dirt, not minding the familiar pain of a prodded bruise. His hands stilled as though his own body was unknown territory. He felt bruises and phantom pains and all venue of other remnants from his ordeal. Because he couldn’t attend to them all, Tim simply stuck his palms into the dirt and tried to put himself away again. 

That he hadn’t given thought to the matter in all the hours trapped in the car, or the time spent walking in silence with Raylan, did not surprise Tim. Consumed with the tasks at hand, he’d lost himself to an array of causes--revenge, safety, return--and the means to see them done. Idle thoughts about a shower in his apartment that might never come to pass did not register; cleanliness didn’t make much of a cause. 

Tim kneaded his hands methodically into the dirt. He dug until he felt bits of rock lodge painfully under his fingernails. He drew his hands back, content with another task. 

Looking from the bodies to the cars to the dirt road, Tim realized he was not glad to be left alone; he’d had enough of that over the past twenty-four hours. He wasn’t going to call for Raylan’s return, however, mostly because he believed his voice might crack or not carry over the bend in the road, and yet again, his pleas would be all for naught. 

He regretted what he’d said--that he’d said anything, really. Walking with Raylan he’d betrayed very little and their time had been practically amiable. Returned to the mountaintop, however, he took perverse pleasure in terrorizing the ever-cool cowboy marshal, but felt less brazen the further he pushed things. Every inkling of self-preservation in his body had told him to just _stop_ and let Raylan talk himself out. The part of Tim that had fought back in the car and was punished for it, however, wanted to gorge itself on Raylan’s nerves, weak as they were. Killing a man wasn’t enough; Tim had sought a slaughter. 

Something stuck in his chest and came out as a hissed swear at the dirt. This wasn’t Afghanistan, and Raylan wasn’t stuck by his side living day in, day out the same kind of terror as Tim. They weren’t brothers, they were _coworkers._ He didn’t appreciate the absurd jokes or gallows humor; they didn’t mean anything to him, they didn’t stave off hunger or fear or thirst, because Raylan had beer on his breath and a phone in his pocket with the promise of a timely evac. 

“Shit,” Tim sighed. 

A new clarity in his mind, Tim raised his head, ready to give his voice a try, but saw Raylan’s ducked head bobbing back into view, then his stooped shoulders, and finally his long legs. He’d either only needed a moment to compose himself, or had cut his break short, realizing the circumstances in which he’d again left his partner. 

Watching Raylan approach, Tim took a breath and chose his words carefully, knowing he could give Raylan exactly what he wanted, and perhaps even win some silence--and company--in return. “I lied to you,” Tim gritted out. Raylan stopped and stood awkwardly, listening. “Walking. We were about another two hours from an actual strip of road, maybe a payphone. I wanted to come back here. I wanted them dead and figured I’d get the opportunity.”

Raylan nodded slowly. That kind of precision and ruthlessness on Tim’s part, he supposed, was welcome. It answered for the marshal’s coolness, if nothing else. “That’s a big risk you took.”

It was like talking shop, Tim knew. And it pulled Raylan back into the situation he’d suddenly come to feel helpless in, given his practical absence. “For both of us, yeah. Sorry about that.”

Raylan took long, easy steps to approach Tim. “Like I said, can’t complain.” Although it took him a moment, Raylan came to sit on the ground, same as Tim, allowing the reddish earth to taste the ends of his jacket and paint the backs of his jeans. He eyed the gun Tim still held, pinned between his palm and the earth. 

“You won’t mind if I ask to hold on to that for you,” Raylan said, and because he didn’t avoid Tim’s eyes when the sniper sought Raylan’s own out, Tim surrendered. 

“If it’ll make you feel better,” Tim said, sounding his usual level of unimpressed and disinterested. Raylan took the gun with little fanfare; Tim neither struggled to keep it, nor regretted its loss. Raylan turned the thing over in his hands. It was a heavy, older model of glock. 

“It’s a pretty shitty gun,” he observed. “Makes that headshot you took all the more impressive.”

“I’m an artist,” Tim dismissed. “What can I say.”

“You had a little distance, though,” Raylan offered up, meaning to sound conversational, though both marshals were aware of the other shoe and its immanent drop. “Wouldn’t have been so pretty, up close.” 

Tim chuckled lowly. “I was just kidding,” he tried, knowing he’d shaken Raylan with his display, and regretting the outburst for reasons greater than the shit storm it’d land him in as far as returning to work was concerned. “You know, ha ha?”

Raylan’s smile was small and humorless. “Should I not tell Art about that, either?”

“Well, I’d never think to ask,” Tim smirked at the ground. “Nice of you to offer.” 

“Ha ha,” Raylan echoed, standing up. Hands on his hips, he took a moment to survey their little encampment. “Fuck this, let’s take the car and get out of here.”

“And leave the scene of the crime? Raylan, I am truly shocked.” There was a flatness to the words--a way of Tim saying them just to have them said--that reminded Raylan of Boyd.

“There wasn’t any crime on our part,” Raylan assured, turning and pointing with the glock at the felled man by the crippled car. “ _He_ had a gun trained on me. _You_ saved my life.”

“And the one I might have taken?” Tim asked mildly, absently smoothing one hand over the bits of rock in the road. “He didn’t have so much as a stick.”

Raylan gestured at Charlie dismissively. “He’s still breathing. ‘Sides, he was threatening you.”

Tim tossed a small stone at Charlie, easily hitting the rubbery heel of the man’s sneaker. “With what, his three-inch dick?”

Hands on his hips again, Raylan made his case: “With all the confusion, who really knows how many guns there were--”

“Jesus, Raylan,” Tim grinned. “Is this how you justify all the shit you pull?”

Tim got his silence, though--admittedly--not in the way he’d planned. He’d smarted Raylan with his last remark, despite knowing the man didn’t need any shame heaped on him by others. Raylan was a good guy, Tim grudgingly recognized, and the kind to generate it himself. 

The phone rang, shattering the silence with its bright trill. Raylan stared at it a moment before answering curiously. His face screwed up, annoyed, when the caller finally let him speak. “Yeah, I’m fine by the way. Good to know you care, Rachel. Here’s Tim.” Raylan extended the phone to Tim, who had to shift to the right for better reception. 

“Hi there,” Tim began easily. “Be nice to the man, he saved my life.” 

_“So help me, Tim Gutterson, you will not give me the same bullshit song and dance Raylan gave Art. How are you?”_

Raylan smothered a smile as he overheard Rachel’s response. Her’s was a welcome voice on the mountaintop. Tim issued some easy assurances, but Rachel was not deterred. 

_“You sound upset.”_

“I’m just tired. You sound it, too. Been looking for our sorry asses long?” Waiting out her answer, Tim grinned. “Shit, that sucks. Sorry about the mess. Well, I don’t recommend the drive up... wherever the hell this is. I’ll see you back in Lexington, huh?”

_“Raylan told Art you needed an ambulance.”_

“You’d think he’d never seen a sprained ankle before.” 

_“Is that all?”_

“We both got a little roughed up, but we’re fine.” Then, Rachel seemed to speak for a long time. Tim listened with a glazed look in his eyes before finally replying, “Keep on that, will you? I’d appreciate it.” 

Noise down the road caught both marshals’ attention. 

“The cavalry have arrived,” Tim told Rachel, noting the way the far-off trees lit up in red and blue. Tim returned the phone to Raylan, who tossed it in the front seat of the car. An awkward silence fell over the two; neither sought to issue words or claim assurances. Both men were only eager to see their work done and return home, to hot showers and clean beds and fitful solitude. 

Raylan glanced at his fellow marshal, sitting silent and alert on the ground. He had no more by-the-skin-of-your-teeth plans, and his steady stream of off-color jokes seemed to have finally-- _finally_ \--run its course. He looked contemplative, and by no means as eager as Raylan for the coming hordes of police and medical professionals.

“Tim,” Raylan said, tearing himself from the sights and sounds of the approaching police vehicles and ambulance. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t hear you.”

Tim shook his head slightly, or else the wind caught and teased the younger man’s hair. Raylan would replay the moment a hundred times on the ride back to Lexington, but never knew for certain one way or the other. “I didn’t say anything.” 

Local PD took Tim and Raylan’s statements while an out-of-town forensics crew maneuvered around in the dark, taking pictures and bagging evidence. Raylan blinked tiredly into the light a pretty EMT with a long, chestnut-colored ponytail blasted in his eye. Tim grunted in response to another prodding at his ankle. 

Ponytail hummed in displeasure; Charlie was assuming a great deal of space in the one ambulance. “Can you two wait a while longer? This guy might not make it.”

Raylan’s adamant _“No”_ crashed with Tim’s easy _“Sure.”_

“What about him?” Raylan asked, jutting a thumb towards the driver’s body. Ponytail looked ready to brandish her flashlight again. “Need help strapping him to your roof?”

“Coroner will take care of that,” she said. “Surely you know procedure.”

“Well, ain’t it procedure for there to be enough ambulances for injured parties?” Raylan snapped back. “I assumed the closest town had just the one.”

Ponytail pocketed her flashlight and rolled her eyes; Raylan wasn’t dangerously concussed, he was just a grumpy asshole. “Mister, you’ve got no earthly clue how far into the _middle of nowhere_ you are right now, do you? Sit tight. Someone will show up to change and burp ya, eventually.” 

“Is that a promise?” Raylan called after her. 

The EMTs departed and were soon followed by the local PD, who offered the two marshals a lift. 

Raylan and Tim declined, noting that the closest town was well out of their way. If only for a short while, the two found themselves short of company--the living variety, anyway. 

The rumble of advancing vehicles awakened the mountaintop one final time. 

“If you don’t tell Art,” Raylan began again, but his conscience had eaten away at any threat he’d prepared himself to make. He shook his head tiredly. “I’ll get you help.”

“I don’t need your help getting help,” Tim replied cooly. “I can walk into a clinic, easy as ever. Well,” he lifted his injured foot a little, and grinned. 

“Prop comedy,” Raylan observed, a tight smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “You’ve resorted to prop comedy. Son, you’re worse off than you think.” 

Two coroners pulled up, young and pale-faced, uncertain of every step as if they’d never crossed the county line. Art arrived shortly after, maneuvering in his sedan easier than could be said of the white van. 

“One for me, one for my career,” Tim muttered, accepting Raylan’s help getting to his feet. His ankle screamed in protest, but Tim had come to terms with the pain. 

“Art could do you worse than the coroner,” Raylan mused, thinking of months of early-morning prison transport duty. Tim fit into his place under Raylan’s arm, and Raylan found himself speaking into the younger man’s mussed hair. “But he won’t. Much as it doesn’t feel it, we didn’t fuck this up.” 

Art stepped one foot out of his car and called out, “Hey, fuck-ups! What the hell did you do?”

“I don’t think Art shares your sentiment,” Tim said mildly. 

A few yards behind them, the two-man coroner team gathered the body with little fanfare, save for one low whistle and a single line of commentary: “Nice shot.” 

Art wandered towards the smoldering shell of the Chevy he and Rachel had spent the day tracking through the word of flimsy diner and gas station witnesses. “Local PD ever show up?”

“Come and gone,” Raylan called back. 

“Fucking amatuer hour,” Art muttered, glancing at his watch. “Hopefully you killed everyone by the book and we won’t have AUSA up our asses for shitty evidence-gathering.” 

“By the book, to the letter,” Tim sing-songed as he climbed into Art’s sedan. 

Tim sat in front and situated his ankle atop the shiny dashboard of Art’s car. Without a word, Raylan slipped off his jacket and surrendered it to Tim, who nodded once and used it to pillow his foot and brace against any sharp turns. 

“I’m going to let that slide,” Art said, noting the bits of dirt and rock flaking off of Tim’s shoe and coloring his dashboard, “As you two look like you’ve gone through hell.” When neither man answered in the affirmative, Art spoke again, this time directly to Tim. “We can wait for that second ambulance,” he nodded toward Tim’s laid up foot. 

“You got any Advil?” Tim asked, already looking through the glove compartment. He found a bottle and swallowed a few pills dry. “We’re good to go.”

Art sized up his two deputy marshals. Their haggard, bruised, and bloodied selves did little to inspire confidence in their conditions, but it was the silence--particularly Raylan’s non-existent efforts to make light of the situation and Tim’s quiet refusal to “report back”--that drew his concern. 

“Well,” Art said after a few minutes of driving, “I know what I’m waiting for, but I sure as shit can’t figure what has you two stalling. Anyone want to tell me what the hell happened?”

“Nooo,” Raylan drawled, then, recognizing the answer was not his best work, he amended, “I may have a concussion.” 

“Sleep first,” Tim interjected, “Is what Raylan means.” Tim shifted in his seat, crossed his arms over his chest, turned to face the window, and shut his eyes. “Raylan wants to take a nap with his concussion, now.” 

Art’s eyebrows fell into a hard line. “Raylan better not.”

“We got overrun,” Raylan said quietly to Art while he was fairly certain Tim was still awake. “Is the short of it.” 

“And that melted car? I take it it’s not modern art.”

“Nope. That was our ride.”

The two senior marshals were silent, then, because--though it came as a surprise to Raylan--Tim did fall asleep, and managed to stay that way for several hours. When he eventually stirred into wakefulness, Tim immediately uncapped the container and swallowed a few more Advil. Art passed him a bottle of water after the fact and Tim accepted it with a swiftly issued, “Thank you, sir.” 

Art’s phone buzzed to life, bearing a message from Rachel. “Charles Weaver,” Art said aloud, and there was no confusion as to who he was speaking of, “Died twenty minutes ago. Cerebral aneurysm.” 

Tim snorted, then tried to cover it with a cough. “I mean, shit.” 

“Darn,” Raylan chimed in, then briefly met eyes with Art in the rearview mirror. Raylan shook his head, and the three fell into another silence. 

They began to pass more familiar scenery. “Art,” Tim said as he identified a few landmarks just outside of Lexington, “I’m going to go ahead and tell you what happened in the hopes that, when we get to Lexington, you’ll let me get my foot looked at and go home.” 

“All right,” Art said evenly. “I’m already liking how you presume lock-up isn’t an option.” He glanced back at Raylan.

“Don’t bother with him,” Tim dismissed. “He was unconscious, missed all the action.”

Tim began easily enough, recalling details of their stakeout and ambush; the entire rap sheets of the low-lifes they were after was a touch more than necessary, Raylan thought. Art voiced a similar opinion and Tim moved on. Raylan zoned out until there was mention of the standoff that led to the kidnapping, then the car, the intent to blow it up, and the various names Tim had picked up while the driver chatted away on his cell phone. The idea that Tim would truly not mention what had been done to him bloomed in Raylan’s chest and sunk deep into his stomach the longer the sniper spared no detail save for those pertaining to himself. 

Raylan knew without hesitation that--if it came to it--he would lie for Tim. The junior marshal had issued him plenty of favors in the past, but Raylan did not consider this potential effort a means of evening the score; it was the decent thing to do, he reasoned, as long as Tim wanted it done. 

“When’d the ankle go?” Art asked when Tim paused to drink from a bottle of water. 

Tim seemed to give the question real consideration. “Well, boss, you can’t very easily get fucked up the ass with your legs crossed.” 

Raylan’s gut turned to ice as he stared at the back of Art’s head, boring holes there as Tim surmised his predicament, breezing by with only a short mention of how he came to be strung up in the backseat, and subsequently abused. “You can sort of see the rope burn,” he said, almost conversationally, while pulling at the hem of his jeans to expose his swollen ankle and accompanying red welts.

Tim rambled on about their return to the car, confrontation with the kidnappers, and eventual shootout. Art listened, but didn’t say another word. 

In Tim’s distorted reflection on the darkened window, Raylan noticed a deep frown slowly claim the young man’s face, complemented by knitted brows and a hard stare that disappeared into space. Whatever he’d wanted in Art’s reaction, he hadn’t got it. 

Art drove straight to the hospital and parked in the ambulance space, flashing his badge at any EMT who dared cross his path as he exited the car. He rounded the back and shut Raylan’s door as the marshal attempted to open it, instead helping Tim out of the Sedan and attempting to share a private word with him. 

Raylan could hear them--just barely--as he sat sheltered in the vehicle. 

Art spoke hurriedly, almost as though he gave two shits about parking in the ambulance lane. “You were sexually assaulted by one of the men attempting to kidnap and murder Raylan and yourself?”

“Yes, sir,” Tim replied, leaning against the sedan for support.

“The one you put a bullet in or the one who just died due to complications from the injury sustained by your knocking him unconscious?”

“The latter, sir.”

“Jesus Christ,” Art said, not undaunted by Tim’s answers. He looked a little pale, though the hand he put on Tim’s shoulder was strong and sure.

“Didn’t make an appearance, though that’d be something.” Tim squirmed under Art’s grip. “Can I go get my foot looked at now, boss?”

Art looked visibly pained, but equally prepared for the task. “Yeah, just--I need to make an entrance.” 

Raylan opened his door--successfully, this time--and leaned with Tim against the frame of the car. It was late and the air was unpleasantly cool, but Tim seemed to enjoy it. He pushed his shirtsleeves up to his elbows and did not, like Raylan, curl his freezing fingers deep into his jeans pockets. They both watched as Art disappeared through the glowing hospital doors.

“He’s freaking out like it’s you or something,” Tim said, and although his mouth quirked upwards some, Raylan wouldn’t hazard calling the gesture a smile. 

“He worries about you, too,” Raylan said, finding his mind drawn back to the instance he and Tim had lost--and then recovered--a pregnant prisoner from a botched prison transport. “Back a while,” Raylan began, “When you shot Jess Timmons.”

“The apricot,” Tim recalled, remembering both the crack shot and the man he’d taken with it. 

The Kentucky-native nodded. “Art asked if you were off. I said I couldn’t tell.” Raylan rubbed his jaw tiredly. “I still can’t tell, Tim. And I’m thinking, maybe you’re off all the time.”

Tim, who had always been slight but now, angled up against the car and seeming even smaller, stared up at Raylan with a kind of blissed-out smile that comes just after a great buzz, or just before the searing pain of a hangover. “First you spend the whole ride here with your knees in the back of my seat, now you insult me!” Tim straightened up some, stretching his back along the curve of the car. “Hell, you’d think I’d twice saved your life, to have you so at odds with me.” 

Raylan shuffled uncomfortably as he watched the hospital doors open from across the way and herald Art’s return. Their boss was on the warpath, heading for the car while flanked by two hospital attendants. Art’s badge was on full display. 

“I don’t know who needs to say this for it to get through to you,” Raylan spoke quickly, hoping to avoid an audience, “But we give a shit.” 

It was harsher than Raylan had intended, but Tim either took the remark in stride, or gave it no credence. 

“Think that’s my ride,” Tim said, eyeing the wheelchair bused in by one of the nurses. 

“It doesn’t have a trunk,” Raylan observed, trying for friendly, “So this is where I leave ya.” 

“Get your head checked out,” Tim said, quirking a tired smile. “We give a shit about you, too.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anything happen in this chapter? lolnope.

For as often as Johnny’s bar served as a base of operations for the remaining Crowder clan, it was still a bar: well stocked, fully operational, and a home-away-from-home for many Harlan residents. It was for the latter point that Boyd kept behind the bar instead of retiring to his office late that night; a group of men drinking and eating Ava’s overpriced, leftover fried chicken (“Sold at our great detriment!” Boyd had enthused, for Johnny didn’t have the proper permit) in the far corner of the bar _weren’t_ Harlan residents. 

There were six all together, mostly drinking to pass the time. Southern boys, the lot of them, but no drawl or well-oiled twang was quite particular to Kentucky. Two, Boyd noticed, were military. All were armed. 

He didn’t chat them up or attempt to draw out information; Boyd believed the best cuts of intel would present themselves, so long as he knew when to stake them out. It wasn’t by god’s providence or fate’s hand that Boyd Crowder had a firm grip on the goings on in Harlan-- it was because he was as good a listener as he was a bullshitter. 

Nonetheless, Boyd wanted to close. Ava was home with a stomach bug and he’d have liked to see her to bed with a cool compress and a lemon wedge to nibble. Something about the men stayed his issue of last call, however, and eventually--as Boyd always found--his time and patience paid off. One of the men took a phone call that seemed to agitate the others. Boyd took in the one-sided conversation, plucking out a few choice phrases: _We’re fucked. They’re dead. Those goddamn marshals._

“You gentlemen have a fi _iine_ evening, now,” Boyd called pleasantly as the men--each pulling out a bundle of crisp twenties--paid their tabs and quickly vacated the bar. 

\- 

Because Art had left the keys in the ignition, Raylan figured it wasn’t exactly grand theft auto. He took the car with every intention of returning to the courthouse and seeking out Rachel, maybe even putting to rest some of the case details so that Tim wouldn’t be bothered with them later. Instead, he stopped for a coffee and drank it slowly in the gas station parking lot. It was bitter, but hot. By the time Raylan had reached the marshal offices, he wanted another. 

An intern let him into the building--wrongly so, as Raylan didn’t have a scrap of identification on him. Cheered to see him (the entire building had been abuzz with the disappearance of the two marshals), she asked where his hat was, leaving no question as to his identity. 

The offices were mostly dark, mostly quiet. The only source of light and activity came from a familiar place--Rachel Brooks’ desk. 

“Who are you bothering this late?” Raylan asked, coming into the bullpen to stand over Rachel’s computer monitor. She’d been hunched over and placing a call. 

Her head snapped up and relief smoothed her strong features. “You suck,” she said, unable to keep from smiling as she lowered the phone and stood to assess him. 

“You okay?” Rachel asked, eyes roaming. “You look a little,” she chewed on the term, “dazed.”

“I was unconscious. For a while.” 

She cocked her head and got a view of the double doors leading to the hall and elevators. “Tim’s not with you?”

“Art’s with him at the hospital. I don’t imagine either of them is too pleased about that.” Raylan took off toward the makeshift kitchenette area, Rachel in tow. 

“Is he okay?”

“He’d say so.” 

Raylan fixed himself a cup of coffee under her watchful eyes, then scrolled through the messages on his phone, recovered by Rachel herself earlier that morning. Coming to stand at his side, Rachel managed not to appear furious with him, although Raylan knew otherwise. He could practically hear the corners of her mouth tighten into place like aging pipes.

It slipped Raylan’s mind sometimes (perhaps because the picture was bizarre and easily confused for fiction), but Tim and Rachel were friends. Good friends, even. Their perfectionist personalities and cool demeanors were bone-deep, and neither ever bruised the other’s ego or struck a nerve. In the field, they were pros. 

Raylan didn’t know it, but two days before he was scheduled to arrive in Kentucky, Art had had Tim move to the desk one away from Rachel, opening up the space for Raylan. 

“He’d resent being sat where I could see him,” Art explained, ignoring Tim’s flat look that clearly said, _Me, too._

Rachel volunteered to move, but Tim shook his head and said in a serious tone Rachel had thought he’d only _half_ put on as a joke, _“There is no goddamn way the new guy is getting the space near the windows, Rachel. I won’t stand for it.”_

“If you came all the way down here for the coffee,” Rachel said, arms folded across her chest, “You’re not well.” Concern underpinned her jab, but Raylan hardly heard the words, let alone their meaning. 

“Tim’s locker,” Raylan said aloud, turning to face Rachel in the empty bullpen. “He’s probably got a change of clothes in there, right?” 

-

After some cajoling from Rachel, the two marshals returned to the hospital to have Raylan’s head injury checked out. This, only after the promise of better coffee was met. The trip first took Rachel out of her way, as Raylan directed her past three gas stations until he found one in which the coffee was acceptable. 

“Tim isn’t all right, is he?” Rachel asked as soon as the nurse left the small examination room. She stared evenly at Raylan, not allowing herself to fall into hysterics and demand to be privy to all her fellow marshals were keeping from her. She continued coolly, “I only ask because I don’t want to go in unprepared.” 

“I don’t reckon he wants to talk about it,” Raylan began, and almost immediately Rachel looked ready to voice a strong objection, but Raylan pressed on: “But I think... Christ, I just--I’d rather he hate me for telling you than hate _you_ for asking.” 

It was the same bullshit Tim had called him on regarding Art. Over the next few minutes, Raylan told her what he knew, blending all he’d surmised on his own with what Tim had grudgingly shared. Her face the picture of stoicism, Rachel listened. The only betrayal of her nerves was the occasional smoothing she’d give the small stack of Tim’s clothes in her lap. 

“He’s upset about it. I mean, he was. After we cleared the car he looked about ready to cry, he was so relieved. He thanked me.” Raylan scrubbed a hand over his face, wishing maybe he’d just called Rachel and told her this, instead of subjecting himself to a confined space with her attentive silence and unwavering stare. Raylan didn’t tell her about Tim bringing the stolen glock to his own head, because Raylan truly believed he’d egged Tim on to that. It wasn’t, unlike Tim’s issue of thanks, sincere. When Raylan rested his hands on his knees, he noticed they were shaking.

“Christ,” he said, laughing humorlessly. 

Raylan spoke again, harsh in his tone, as if he expected to head off a line of questioning from Rachel. “I didn’t hear a goddamn thing,” he asserted, forcing eye contact.

Rachel blinked in surprise, but quickly schooled her expression. Her sympathy was split between both men, but in this instance, her heart broke for Raylan. He’d twice stated as much, and Rachel did not believe his need to impress this fact upon her was in any way related to his own injury.

“I was unconscious... not a foot away from him.” 

He felt tremendous guilt--unduly, she determined, but there was no getting that across to a man married to his own failures. Rachel set Tim’s tidy stack of clothes on the second empty chair in the cramped room, leaned forward in her seat, and took one of Raylan’s shaking hands in her own. 

A doctor finally graced the small examination room with his presence, but Rachel did not lessen her grip until Raylan met her eyes and accepted what was there: certainty that Raylan had done well given the circumstances, and that, truly, the past day and a half were exactly as Tim had explained them: fucking shitty. 

Their hands parted, Rachel returned Tim’s clothes to her lap for further smoothing, and Raylan’s doctor began his examination. 

\- 

Rachel busied herself with finding salvageable coffee in the hospital cafeteria, then met up again with Raylan after he’d undergone a CT scan. 

“They find anything?” Rachel asked, chancing a smile. Raylan returned it and accepted a coffee in turn. 

“Told them there was nothing in there to knock around,” Raylan mused, rapping his skull with his index finger. “Said they had to check to be sure.”

“It’s a racket,” Rachel teased, passing Raylan a tray bearing two additional cups of coffee. She collected her purse and Tim’s clothes. “Come on. I flashed my badge to some interns. Art and Tim are on the third floor.” 

Rachel and Raylan may have very well first passed the room at some point, as neither would have heard the hushed voices carrying on in the private space.

They did not overhear, for instance, Tim issue his refusal of treatment for anything other than his ankle. He claimed if any tests or reports went on his record, they’d be available to Linda in accounts, who couldn’t keep her mouth shut (“You know Cindy on the second floor? I have no goddamn clue what she does, but I do know that she’s been to her gynecologist twice in the past month.”), or it’d flag on his military file, maybe hurting him there. 

“Or some other bullshit excuse,” Art had intoned. 

Tim had stared hard at him for that. “I’m not stupid,” he said, then added for the quiet doctor’s benefit, “I’ll get tested at a clinic. I got a job now, but if I ever need to rely on that care, go to a VA hospital... I can’t smear this pile of shit on top of it. This is what I’m doing, Art, because it’s best for me.” 

Tim spoke resolutely, but Art was hardly convinced. He saw himself to the door with one remaining comment for the doctor. 

“Will you talk some goddamn sense into him, Pete?”

Raylan and Rachel found Art down an empty hallway, leaning opposite a private hospital room. As the two Deputy Marshals approached, they found the door to be slightly ajar, but the entrance nonetheless blocked by Tim’s doctor, a tall, dark-skinned man with a soft voice.

Raylan slid in beside Art, wordlessly offering him a coffee. Art accepted it without ever dragging his eyes from the tiny crack in the doorway. His face was all hard lines, and Raylan recognized the expression as the one Tim had shot out the window of the sedan after answering Art’s questions and then being met with silence. 

Art didn’t catch Raylan staring. 

Through the door, Raylan recognized the doctor as Peter Hamilton, lead on the team that patched him back together after he sustained a bullet wound in Harlan. Although the doctor’s words were unknown, all three marshals had no trouble making out Tim’s “Yes, sir,” “No, sir,” and “Thank you, sir” responses. He sounded alert and calm, and Raylan suspected if he closed his eyes, he could just as well picture the team in the field, Art delineating orders and Tim responding in turn. But Raylan did not let the image develop as such; if he closed his eyes, he was certain he’d fall asleep. 

“Thanks for coming in, Pete,” Art said, pushing off the wall as the doctor left Tim’s room, closing the door behind him. As they shook hands, both Rachel and Raylan played audience to two very tired-looking men. 

“Of course,” Pete assured. “For one of yours, Art, it’s never any trouble.” He nodded to Rachel and Raylan.

“Dr. Hamilton,” Raylan greeted. If he’d had his hat, Raylan might have tipped it. 

“Well,” Pete sighed, observing the small team gathered in the fluorescent-lit hospital hallway. “Looks like he’ll have a ride home, then. Goodnight.” 

Raylan watched Pete walk away and disappear around the corner leading to the elevators. “That’s it?” he whispered, incredulous. “He isn’t going to tell us how Tim is?”

“We’re not his mommy and,” Art made a face, “daddies, Raylan. Tim’s a grown man.” 

“Yeah, I know, but--”

Raylan’s rebuttal was cut short by Tim opening the heavy door, appearing recently showered and especially small in a too-big hospital gown. A blindingly white, almost cartoonish cast encapsulated most of his lower leg and the near entirety of his foot. “Should I join you all out in the hallway,” Tim drawled, “Or can we be civilized people and occupy this expensive room, huh?” 

Rachel was the first one in, and promptly embraced Tim in a hug. Over her shoulder, Tim shot Raylan an angry look, but it was gone when Rachel pulled back and Tim graced her with an awkward smile. 

_Christ,_ Raylan thought, surveying Tim. _He looks like a kid._

It was more than the gown gaping at his throat and exposing smooth skin and a perpetual shrug, or the scrubbed-clean face. There was a strange, barely-there smile on his lips, as if he held it in wait of confirmation from the adults in the room. 

His smile turned genuine--if not a little embarrassed--as Rachel presented him with the small selection of clothes from his locker. 

“My hero,” he beamed, slipping on a pair of gray boxer briefs underneath the hospital dressing gown. Between a shirt and a pair of pants that Tim knew right away wouldn’t fit comfortably over the bulky cast was a pair of electric blue basketball shorts. “Raylan’s or Art’s?” Tim mused, holding them up for display. 

“They’re Nick’s,” Rachel admitted. “And they’re clean. I keep a gym bag in my car for him.”

“I have the physique of a ten-year-old,” Tim remarked dryly as he put them on and found the fit to be perfect. “I’m not ashamed of it.”

“Well, consider yourself lucky they aren’t mine,” Rachel teased, though the smile died on her lips as Tim let the hospital gown drop from his frame, revealing his bruised torso. As Tim turned in an effort to be modest while donning a long-sleeved shirt from his locker, he unwittingly found an audience for the finger-shaped bruises printed along the back of his neck, where a strong hand had forced his twisting self into immobility.

“Little purple number with white piping?” Tim grinned, remembering the few times he and Rachel had worked out together. “I could pull ‘em off.” He’d turned back around just in time to see Art, Raylan, and Rachel share a pitiable look with one another. 

“Jesus, I guess not,” Tim said, purposefully misinterpreting the look. Leaning across the bed to reach the small side table, he plucked the last remaining cup of coffee from the tray. 

“Raylan,” he said, pausing to take a sip. “How’d you check out?” 

“Good, Tim,” Raylan answered, a little dazed. The coffee sat cold and thick in his stomach. “Real good.” 

“Real good to hear,” Tim returned. He sat on the very edge of the hospital bed, hardly disturbing the thin, starchy sheets.

“This is nice,” he deadpanned, surveying the three tired and sorry figures in the room. 

Rachel and Raylan were seated in two guest chairs that Tim imagined had been donated from a high school, considering the errant marks and ticks taken out of their plastic forms. Art was seated on a cushioned seat along the wall adjacent to Tim, a window behind his head lighting the older man with the glow of an ill-positioned street lamp. Tim was absently glad he wasn’t expected to stay the night in this room and sleep in the light’s orange glow. 

Raylan nodded toward Tim’s cast, asking lamely, “It’s broken?” If his ankle had ever been only sprained--and Raylan somehow doubted this--Tim had broken it in the course of killing their assailants and retaking the car.

“No,” Tim answered simply. “Just cold.”

“Hey,” Raylan leaned back in his chair and sported a genuine grin. “Guess what? Art and I saw a bear.”

“No shit?” Tim was grinning, too.

Raylan ignored the bemused look Rachel was throwing him, and continued with his story. He liked the half-smile on Tim’s face, and sought to keep it there. “Just past where we got to, walking. Big sonovabitch. Took his sweet time crossing the road, too. We tried to wake you.”

“Would have made the whole trip worth it,” Tim lamented with a wry smile.

“Goddamnit,” Art muttered quietly.

Tim’s head snapped up and he stared hard at his boss, curious or maybe--expectant. It only lasted a moment before Tim averted his gaze to the wall behind Raylan and Rachel. He took another miniscule sip of coffee. Art didn’t elaborate. 

Rachel managed to save her coworkers from a stint of awkward silence by rummaging around her purse for a plastic evidence bag containing Tim’s phone, keys, badge, and wallet, and offering them to Tim. He smirked as he briefly scrolled through all of his missed calls--the vast majority of which were from Rachel. 

“Aww,” he teased, stuffing the other items in the deep pockets of his shorts, “You do care.” 

“Of course,” Rachel said. It was a touch too sincere and Tim colored slightly.

“Well” or “Hell” Tim mumbled indecipherably, and edged off the bed, keeping his injured foot just an inch above the ground. Off the table top to the right of the bed, he gathered a small paper bag. It held a prescription for painkillers and sleep aids (as well as an impressive supply of samples), and a number of pamphlets. Wedged between the table and bed was a pair of crutches, which Tim handled easily. “I’m ready to go. Boss?” 

Art did not reply immediately. When he did, his voice was distant, even a little cool towards Tim. “You know they’re gonna wheel you out of here,” he said flatly. “Hospital policy.”

Raylan looked from Tim to Art, observing a subtle change in their relationship. Tim didn’t look eager to take that order, and Art didn’t seem to want to give it. A chasm had developed between them, shattering their easy give-and-take. Raylan had never given it much thought--initially, he’d presumed Tim was military through-and-through, seeking order like a compulsion, like his habit of the 6:30am wake-up call he couldn’t break--and Art, well. Art must have been pleased as punch to finally have someone in his ranks who, unlike Raylan, could stomach a command. 

But now, with his back turned toward the man as he headed out the door, Tim seemed to physically blunt himself against Art. 

“Tell you what,” Tim said, taking long steps and cementing Raylan’s assumptions, “If they catch me, I won’t put up a fight.”

“You’re pretty handy with those,” Raylan observed as the marshals made their way down the hall, Tim first among them. Thanks to the cocktail of painkillers Tim was on, his muscles were as loose as his tongue.

“Twice broken leg,” Tim answered. “When I was a kid. Two summers in a row.”

“Shit,” Raylan marvelled, resting as they reached the end of the hall. He punched the elevator button and leaned against the wall, then looked Tim up and down, trying to imagine him as a young boy. It wasn’t difficult. “You didn’t learn your lesson the first time?”

Chin tucked to his chest, Tim’s ridiculous grin was mostly obscured. Then he rolled his head back as if to present his expression, unveiling it like some lost work of art. It was bizarre; he was beaming as though Raylan’s comment made him giddy. “That’s what my dad said, too.” 

Raylan followed Tim into the elevator, then punched the button to close the doors on a deeply frowning Rachel and Art.

“The hell is up with you and Art?” Raylan asked, certain that either Tim’s drug-addled mind or the privacy of the elevator would afford him an answer. 

“He yelled at me,” Tim answered coolly. 

Raylan pursed his lips. “That’s not unusual, in my experience.”

“I yelled back.”

“Shit.” 

“He’s kinda on your thing,” Tim mused. “Except he doesn’t know when to fucking quit.”

“That so,” Raylan said, trying not to make it sound like a question. It didn’t matter; he’d spurred Tim on to a short tirade concerning the man.

“Going on about-- _It’s not fucking funny, Tim. It’s not a joke, Tim. This is serious_ \--” Tim laughed at that. “I’ve seen guys mutilated, turned inside out, blown to pieces. Other snipers get caught up in shit and turn up a week later, faces gone and fingers minced up and stuffed in their pockets.” He looked down at the encased leg jutting out from the slinky pair of bright basketball shorts. He wriggled his toes. “I’m in a cast, going home. This is nothing.”

Raylan studied his fellow marshal, and perhaps got the clearest picture of him he’d ever had. Sometimes in the office, Tim looked a hair too professional, wearing the occasional tie like a costume piece. In the field, he’s decked out in so much U.S. Marshal gear--kevlar, cap, jacket--there are probably underpants to match. Nothing in Tim’s arsenal of wears, however, could mask his cool nature and ease with a rifle. His base coat was all sniper, and every other color was cracked and starting to show his insides bleeding out. 

Raylan didn’t know the length of Tim’s service, but something rang true when he thought, _maybe Tim was hardly even a man before he became a soldier._

“Kentucky ain’t a warzone, Tim.” 

“I know that.” Tim had the good grace to look mildly embarrassed. He certainly had not meant to reveal to Raylan the very crux of his coping mechanism, though hearing himself issue it aloud was something a revelation for Tim, too. It made so much more sense in his head: Shit happens. In shitty circumstances, shit that happens happens in rolling, concatenating droves. “Nobody can shoot for shit.”

Raylan couldn’t help but laugh--a little thing, mostly exhaustion wound up in nerves. “What are you on, man?”

Tim knew a figurative life preserver when he heard one. “Oh, just high on life.” He reasserted his grip on the crutches and was out of the elevator even before the doors had fully opened. 

\- 

Lindsey was pleased to see him, and Raylan needed the distraction enough that he tore her away from work, somehow communicated how much greater his need for her was than her patron’s need for a good time, and they plunged together into his darkened room above the bar. There, he indulged in everything she held bare.

They fucked, long and leisurely. 

Raylan tasted skin and sweat that was not his own, used his arms to lift himself and not another. Lindsey’s groans were too high, too feminine to be confused for anything other than they were, and he reveled in the reality of a contact that was less out of necessity than want. 

Afterwards, Lindsey lured Raylan into the shower and cleaned him--a strangely intimate act that neither commented on afterwards. Raylan supposed Lindsey was just being practical: he wasn’t in a state to clean himself, and he’d only dirty the bed, otherwise. 

She scrubbed the blood out of his hair and did not ask to whom it belonged when she didn’t find a corresponding gash.

When they sank into the sheets, Raylan stretched his aching body. They kissed, she touched him, but the rest of the evening took the pair no further. Raylan kept her close. He pressed his nose into her hair and smelled tangy shampoo. It wasn’t like turning to speak into Tim’s hair as the pair hobbled along. Hers was wet and clean where Tim’s had been raked through by another’s forceful hand, bits of gel mussed and dissolving under a damp sweat. 

“Tim got hurt today,” Raylan murmured into the back of Lindsay’s neck. Unlike Tim’s, hers showcased no bruises. His lips brushed against warm skin, and she shivered. 

“Sorry to hear it,” she offered, but Raylan was gone and lost to sleep. 

-

At 6:35 the following morning, Raylan Givens placed a call. 

“What,” Tim sounded well awake, and Raylan heard the soft murmur of Tim’s television and the gurgle of a coffee machine.

“Thought you’d be up,” Raylan said, his own voice trapped in a near-perpetual yawn. “How’re you feeling? You need anything?”

“Fine and nope.”

“You sure, because--”

“Rachel did my shopping,” Tim interrupted. “I guess I eat fruits and vegetables, now.”

“Oh. Need any ice cream?”

“About as much as I need any more apologizes,” Tim hummed. Raylan listened as Tim opened and closed a cabinet.

“This ain’t that. This is ice cream.” 

“Keep your ice cream, Raylan.”

Raylan sat up and swung his legs over the bed. The wood floor was cold. “When did Rachel do your shopping?” 

“Between dropping you off and talking at me for an hour.” 

Raylan scratched his head, tenderly feeling out the expanse of an ugly lump just above his ear. “You didn’t talk back?” 

“I assumed you’d told her everything. Maybe put on a puppet show, done the voices.” 

The unexpected bite in Tim’s voice gave Raylan pause. He supposed he’d taken liberties with Tim’s situation, allocating details unduly. Art, Dr. Hamilton, and Rachel all were aware of something Tim probably had a mind never to share with anyone. Raylan even supposed that, had their situations been switched, Tim would have kept quiet for Raylan, if only because he trusted him to make his own decisions--the poor ones included. There was still a great deal only known between the two--gruesome details Raylan had not made apparent to Rachel and Tim had not imparted to either Art or Dr. Hamilton--but it seemed like a shallow reservoir for Raylan to wade into. 

He supposed, too, that there were no excuses to be made. Raylan said what he did because he thought it was necessary. At any rate, his own regrets weren’t as trivial as spilled secrets. “Wish I hadn’t dragged you into my shit, Tim.”

“Well,” Raylan heard the clink of a spoon against something metallic, and supposed Tim was stirring sugar into his coffee. “Would you rather have died, Raylan?” 

Raylan frowned. “I don’t think I--”

“ _Really?_ ” Tim had stopped stirring, and Raylan took it as his waiting for a real answer. When it became clear Raylan did not have one in his arsenal, Tim returned to stirring, and spoke with a leisurely confidence, adding, “I think you would have died, going alone. I don’t mind taking one for the team.”

“I wish you hadn’t.”

Raylan could practically hear the smirk twist into place as Tim drawled, “I think the point of the exercise was that I didn’t have a choice.”

Raylan was too tired and too disheartened to take offense to Tim’s jokes. They didn’t roll of his back so much as gut him, still, but Raylan just kept quiet and let Tim say the things he did. 

“Hell,” Tim pressed, “If you’d asked for backup and I’d said no, and you died-- _like you would have_ \--I’d be the one feeling like shit. So, really, I win.” Sounds from the television echoed a little louder over the phone, and while Raylan couldn’t figure how Tim managed to venture on his crutches with a cellphone to his ear and coffee in hand, and sit himself in his living room, Raylan was certain he had. “There would have been a new new guy. What if he didn’t have as nice a hat as yours?”

“I see,” Raylan said, rubbing the sleep from his left eye with the palm of his hand. It stung, as if bruised. “You make a lot of sense, Tim.” 

Tim was quiet for a time, a little disheartened to hear the exhaustion in Raylan’s voice. Their little adventure--terrible and bone-breaking as it was--had come to an end. There was no more need of joking to cut through the fear; there was only the hard part left. Rebuilding. 

“Talking to me isn’t going to make either of us feel better,” Tim said, exchanging his edginess for a flat kind of certainty--a kind of, _you sure you wanna eat here?_ while approaching any of Harlan’s fine establishments. “So why don’t you just stop.”

“Now?” Raylan voiced into the silence, feeling stupid. “Should I... not call you?”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed. “That.”

“All right.”

Tim ended the call. 

Raylan rested in bed a while longer, hand dipping into the pool of sheets twisted between himself and Lindsey. He found her hand and held it. He spent the next hour thinking about what a shitty time of day 6:35 on a Saturday morning was. 

Some time later, after he’d drifted off to sleep again and awoken a little after noon, Raylan ventured downstairs and found Lindsey behind the bar. He joined her in cleaning glasses. 

“You seem awfully sweet on me all of a sudden,” Lindsey teased, thinking on the previous night’s hand-holding and intimate fucking. 

“Huh?” Raylan frowned at the soapy water and dunked another beer mug. “I don’t mean to be.” 

Lindsey barked out a laugh. “Because you haven’t had your coffee yet, I’ll excuse that.”

Raylan winced. “Shit. Sorry. It’s just...” he shook his head. “All this shit with Tim.”

Lindsey’s brows made use of their perpetually-surprised shape. “You’re thinkin’ about Tim while bein’ all sweet on me? Oh, Raylan, _please_ tell me you can talk that boy into the bedroom with us. I bet,” she paused, imagining, “I bet he is so _eager._ ”

Lindsey had met Tim a number of times in Raylan’s company. Young and clean-cut normally didn’t start her engine, but she remembered that the boy had a smart mouth on him. 

“Fuck--what? No, Lindsey. Jesus.” Raylan dunked a mug and wiped at it angrily, then forced it into her hands.

Lindsey accepted the mug and did not allow Raylan’s antics to put her off. “Maybe for my birthday, then.”

“Stop.”

“Troubles shared are halved,” Lindsey said, shrugging. She passed Raylan back the glass, pointed with her lacquered fingernail that he’d missed some spots along the rim. 

\- 

Raylan didn’t see or speak to Tim again until the following Wednesday when he returned to work, his hair still too-long, his attire otherwise neat and touched with its usual military influence. The bruises on his forehead and cheek had lightened to a sickly yellow, and the darker ones on his arms were hidden by his shirtsleeves. His split lip was healing nicely, but Tim seemed to relish toying at it with his tongue.

To a casual observer, the only aspect out of place was Tim’s wearing of a cast, awkwardly peaking out of a pair of trousers just wide enough to swallow up the casing. The cast wasn’t the only thing different about Tim, but it was the only thing that seemed to merit attention.

His watch--new, as he’d lost his original during the kidnapping--and buttoned shirt cuffs obscured the tears and cuts into his wrists, though sometimes they pulled when he reached for something on his desk, and the ugly red abrasions peaked out. Raylan had no such testaments to his struggle; unconscious, he hadn’t spent what he now understood to have been hours wrestling and vying for freedom. 

Given the wild hit from Tim on the mountain, however, Raylan was sporting two partially blackened eyes. Purple smudges radiated from the bridge of Raylan’s nose and swept under his eyes, shiny and awkward-looking. They’d only worsened since the marshals had last seen each other at the hospital, but Tim kept a straight face when he asked, “The hell happened to you?”

Raylan, who had brought Tim--as well as the other marshals--coffee, relinquished the drink with a flat look. Tim took a noisy sip and Raylan flipped him off before returning to a case he’d caught Tuesday afternoon. At present, it was just a selection of old files and scribbled list of names and acquaintances. Herb Weston, a bail-jumper out of Louisville, was probably making his way through the state. It was nothing terribly exciting, but it kept Raylan occupied.

Art, alternatively, had his hands full managing to keep the kidnapping case in-house. Everyone from the FBI to the local police out in Morgan County initially wanted in, but were quick to realize they’d be better off without the Raylan Givens-shaped headache the case was sure to bring. 

Because it was no secret around the office that Tim had killed the two kidnappers, Internal Affairs and AUSA swooped in, bringing a firestorm of interest down to the marshals’ offices, though seemingly containing it in the conference room. It was strange, Raylan thought a little after 10am, seeing David Vasquez pass over him and train his sharp eyes on another. Tim hardly glanced up from his work when Vasquez passed his desk, disappearing into Art’s office and closing the door behind him. 

“Did you know he was coming today?” Raylan asked, stealing the words from Tim’s own mouth.

“No. Did you?”

“Usually Art gives me a heads up and we strategize.” Raylan frowned, staring where Tim wouldn’t at the glassy office doors and the two men, heads bent in conversation. Although he didn’t see it, Raylan could have sworn he heard Tim swallow. 

“Must be a good sign,” Raylan only partly bullshitted. “Art not needing to go over lines with you.”

Tim didn’t look convinced. The transparent, blue-tinted partition between their desks kept Raylan from seeing that Tim had paled slightly, but he did notice that Tim went for the bottle of water on his desk rather than the mug of coffee. 

“I can’t lose my job. I need the dental.” The words slid out of Tim shellacked in his usual sarcasm, but what followed was just a hair quieter that it registered with Raylan as the closest thing to genuine fear Tim was capable of expressing: “I can’t lose my job, Raylan. I’ll go crazy without it.” 

“Well,” Raylan said, watching as Vasquez departed Art’s office and the Chief hung silently back in the doorway. “Don’t go telling _him_ that.” 

Approaching Raylan’s desk--but ultimately stopping at Tim’s--Vasquez tapped three times on the wood surface. “Deputy,” he nodded. “Let’s have a word.” 

“Me, too?” Raylan asked, pulling Vasquez’s attention away from Tim. “I was mostly present.” 

“Doctors had Raylan draw a picture,” Tim offered flatly, still seated and gathering his crutches. “See if he had all his motor skills after the fact. Fucking thing looks like a trainwreck.” 

Raylan made an affronted sound. “It had depth, Tim. And perspective.”

Vasquez grinned a little, and moved to give space for Tim to pass on his crutches. “You get me that picture, I’ll hang it up on my fridge next to my kid’s latest Picasso.” 

“I get you that picture,” Tim corrected, “You excuse me from this investigation.” 

Raylan heard Tim joke haughtily before making his way into the conference room, “I couldn’t have shot anyone, I was three feet tall.” 

\- 

“Deputy Gutterson,” Vasquez greeted him formally, smiling encouragingly as Tim maneuvered out of his crutches and into a seat at the conference table. “I’ll tell you now, I’m familiar with your history--good shots, _amazing_ shots--so let’s do this by the book and be out of here by lunch, huh?” He stuck out his hand. 

Tim sat up and had to lean forward some to grasp it and shake. “I knew Raylan was wrong about you,” he drawled, sinking into an easy slouch. Inwardly, Tim was a tightly wound ball of nerves; he hadn’t anticipating speaking to AUSA his first day back on the job. Despite the confidence he had in the shot he’d taken, Tim knew he was responsible for two lost lives. It didn’t matter, either, that he’d saved his own and Raylan’s in turn. Some months back, Raylan had been sour at Tim when the junior marshal teased him during his own experience with AUSA, and he’d imparted some advice that had Tim found himself revisiting. _When you’re stuck right in front of them, neat and clean while defending something dirty, they don’t give a shit that you mightn’t have been._

Tim eyed the audio recording device Raylan had earlier mentioned-- _warned_ \--would undoubtedly be joining them. It sat on the table amongst a small stack of files and case notes.

Vasquez followed Tim’s stare and powered the device on. “Why do you think I’m here today, Deputy Gutterson?”

“Hi,” Tim said, reaching for the device and speaking directly into it. “I’m Tim.” He placed the thing back in the center of the table and volunteered his sincere belief: “You’re here because the only other person to witness the shot was Raylan Givens.”

Vasquez smirked. “So no hard feelings, then?”

“Nope.”

Vasquez proceeded to revisit Tim’s telling of the ordeal, which Tim figured Art or Raylan had put together in a report, seeing as he hadn’t retold the story since Art heard it in the car. Over the weekend and through Tuesday, Tim hadn’t allowed himself to dwell on those events. He couldn’t, anyway, after deciding he wanted to sleep. While he was hesitant to indulge in the painkillers, he emptied the sample bottle of sleeping aids, and refilled the prescription Tuesday morning. The medicine made him clouded and uneasy, but it was worth it just to lay his head down and not be plagued by nightmares. It wasn’t a restful sleep, however, because Tim awoke feeling as though he’d been knocked unconscious. Still, it was eight hours out of his day. 

And that was all Tim wanted: to chew up time until he felt better. 

Sometimes his episodic PTSD trapped him in his car at an odd intersection or had him flat on his belly in his own apartment, confusing the wail of a far-away car alarm for the whistle of incoming mortar fire, but it wasn’t the real thing and knowing that, Tim could soldier on. 

He answered Vasquez’s questions, filling in the appropriate details, and keeping careful not to sound anything other than _knowledgeable_ of events. Over-confidence or shame would be his undoing. 

“Now, Charles Weaver--”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Tim interrupted.

“But you did...” Vasquez leafed through the file a moment, scanning various pages. Tim had no doubt he was doing this for effect; he was very clear on what Tim had done. 

“Whacked him over the head with the butt of his own piece,” Tim supplied. “Yeah, I did.”

“Why did you see him as a threat?” 

“I dunno,” Tim hummed. “Must have been all the threatening things he said and did.”

“Like what?”

Tim eyed the audio recorder and Vasquez, ever-present pen to paper. If he avoided this line of questioning, Tim knew, it’d be flagged, and undoubtedly addressed later. “In the car,” Tim began. “He threatened to kill Deputy Givens on the spot if I didn’t keep quiet and still. He threatened to break my legs after I kicked him, and, you know, good on him for really following through on that one. And he kept me in a place against my will. Uh, threateningly so.”

Vasquez scribbled as Tim spoke. “How’d he do that?”

“Well,” Tim mused, straightening out his arms and unbuttoning the cuffs on his blue dress shirt, then rolling up each sleeve once, twice, until his wrists and forearms were bare. “I don’t know how _you_ child lock your car...” 

On Tim’s exposed wrists, Vasquez noted how the cuts and twisting rope burns crisscrossed over the marshal’s Army Rangers tattoo. Even when the abrasions healed, the design would undoubtedly show some distortion. “That’s a shame,” he commented. 

“I thought so, too,” Tim said, smirking and fixing his sleeves. 

“He was a direct threat to your and Deputy Givens’ lives, is what you’re telling me,” Vasquez continued. 

Tim shrugged. “If that’s what you’re hearing.”

“You could have shot him,” Vasquez commented lowly.

“Hell, at that range, I could have shot a gnat.”

“But you didn’t.” Vasquez studied the junior marshal. Usually, he found that people would tell more with their body language than their words in his line of work. Deputy Marshal Gutterson, with equal parts impassivity and mildly bemused disinterest, gave away very little beyond his to-the-point answers. Vasquez hated going by a man’s word, but Tim wasn’t giving him much else to work with. “Why not?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought I’d end up talking to you.” Turning his wrist and pretending to scratch the palm of one hand, Tim caught a glimpse at his watch. It affirmed the time he’d been keeping in his head: he’d been speaking with David Vasquez for almost an hour and a half. He pressed on, hoping to bring the investigation to a close through sheer pigheadedness--another Raylan Givens tactic Tim hoped would work in his favor. _There comes a time when they’re just shitting on your day,_ Raylan had said. _So shit on their case._

Tim leaned forward and met eyes with Vasquez. “I didn’t shoot him because he wasn’t armed. If he’d had so much as a slingshot in his pocket and I put a bullet in his brain, we’d be talking about two good shots.” 

Vasquez kind of smirked and--for once--didn’t make note of Tim’s comment. 

He even lifted his pen completely off his legal pad. It was an ink pen, and Tim could have sworn he heard the weak squelch of a droplet of ink parting from its vessel. 

_Shit,_ Tim swore silently, though any modicum of concern was absent from his bored expression. _Taking advice from Raylan-fucking-Givens--do I_ want _to get fired?_

_Try again,_ Tim thought. _Redirect. He’s waiting._

“I killed a lot of people in Afghanistan,” Tim volunteered. He immediately wished he could take it back or dismiss it, but leaving the comment there would be altogether more damning than if Tim had spun off on his own and incorporated the plot of _The Magnificent Seven_ into the past Thursday and Friday’s events. “If I wrote them all out, I could give you a number. I won’t, but.” 

Tim thought about sharing what an intimate act taking a life was, but couldn’t find the words, or else subconsciously knew a civilian couldn’t possibly understand. Even if he had in his arsenal the vocabulary of ten Boyd Crowders, Tim doubted he could manage to fit the act of killing onto U.S. Attorney David Vasquez’s legal pad. 

More than that, Tim wanted to affirm that Ranger school didn’t drum any sense of humanity out of him, that it gave him the skills to take lives and walk away with his own. But in his head, the statement sounded wrong. For the first time in his life, Tim even doubted its veracity. 

He shelved those inklings and continued firmly, “I don’t do it lightly. Never have. As for Charles Weaver--I didn’t bludgeon the guy to death. I struck him just the once, because that’s all the situation called for.” 

Vasquez nodded and touched pen to paper again, making a note and underlining it before setting the pen aside as a gesture of good faith. “Anything else you’d like to add?”

“No,” Tim said, eyeing the recording device. “You?”

Vasquez smiled through his annoyance; usually, people would be so focused on his manic scribbling that they’d forget about the audio recording. It was his own fault, he supposed, for believing the trick would work on a sniper. He straightened his belongings and turned off the device. Tim watched as he placed it in his briefcase along with various files and notes, then stood up. “Deputy Gutterson, there isn’t much I’m not privy to with respect to with cases that cross my desk.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Tim said. When he realized Vasquez was watching him with _that look_ \--that same, pitiable expression that seemed to dog Tim at every turn, the marshal set his jaw and steeled himself for another helping of bullshit. 

“I spoke to Art,” Vasquez continued, gentle but undeterred. “About the--assault. It’s not something I will pursue in terms of motive--”

Tim leveled his eyes across the table, meeting Vasquez’s and silencing him, momentarily, with a look of his own. 

“--but I cannot assure you others won’t put the details together, ask questions...” 

Tim drummed his fingers along the glass tabletop--just twice, as if he was signaling for a drink at a bar. “Was it easy? Getting a line on this, I mean.”

Vasquez looked taken aback; he had prepared himself for pleas, even threats--but a genuine question seemed out of place. “Ah--no, it took some time, some work. Nothing’s written in black and white, of course--”

“Why even look,” Tim interrupted, not raising his voice. “What were you thinking you were on to?” Tim heard his dull drawl waver and he paused a moment to steel himself. “Or did you just want to make sure I knew that you knew, and that I didn’t mistake you for being anything other than _so goddamn smart?_ ” 

He looked up at Vasquez from under his drawn brow and light smattering of eyelashes, and Vasquez found the effect a little haunting. It was a dark and hard look coming from someone so young and--Vasquez supposed it was unfair to thinking in these terms, but--physically unable to back up the threat. 

It did not escape Vasquez’s mind for long, however, that five days ago, the marshal sat in front of him managed to kill and incapacitate two armed men. 

Vasquez rounded the conference table, pulled out the chair next to Tim, and sat. “To answer your first question, Deputy: I honestly did not know what to think when I started in on this case. The circumstances of a deliberate kidnapping were unusual, and the entire matter of your and Raylan’s survival... It was unlikely. This office has seen some major fuck-ups, the misadventures of Raylan Givens first among them. But this was impressive.” Vasquez frowned, remembering the exact moment his interest in the case veered from the details and circumstances provided to him. “Both yourself and Raylan showed tremendous courage and ingenuity. I suppose I thought it was too good to be true.” 

Tim gave a small huff of laughter. “I get paid for being a cynic, too.” 

“This matter is done as soon as we leave this room, Deputy. I hope you will take into consideration the following piece of advice,” Vasquez shook his head, at a loss. “Take some time.”

“And do what?” Tim grinned, imagining more tedious hours spent laid-up with his broken ankle, doing crunches and re-reading _Dune_ to pass the time until he could swallow enough sleeping pills to see him through the night. “Sit on my ass and think about how I could lose my job over this? Or worse?”

Vasquez lost any opportunity to respond when, at the door to the conference room, another investigator appeared and tapped forcibly on the glass. Raylan, Tim noticed, was standing behind him, looking unimpressed. 

“Shit,” Vasquez said. 

“Who’s that?”

“An interested party--kind of an asshole--with a reputation for theatrics.”

“And who’s that in front of Raylan?”

\- 

The investigator, a Bostonian called Gene Hitchens, opened with what amounted to a _speech_. Waving the man’s medical file and coroner's report at the two marshals, Hitchens claimed police brutality and excessive use of force as the true causes of death in the case of Charles Weaver.

“Fire the coroners,” Raylan interrupted, making a successful grab for the file. “Says here he died of a cerebral aneurysm.” 

Raylan had taken Vasquez’s place next to Tim, and once again the marshals and attorneys were pitted against each other on either side of the conference room. Vasquez, Tim noted with a touch of relief, did not reopen his briefcase. At some instances during Hitchens’ speech, Vasquez looked about as bored as Raylan. Tim, on the other hand, felt out the situation differently; for as long as he could stand it, he’d afford Hitchens his attention. 

“Graham v. Connor states--”

“Rehnquist court, right?” Raylan lifted his head, interested. “That guy was a dick.”

Eyes narrowed, Hitchens pressed on. “Graham v. Connor states that the _objective reasonableness standard should apply to a free citizen's claim that law enforcement officials used excessive force._ ”(1)

“A free citizen’s claim,” Raylan reiterated mockingly. “Weaver’s dead.”

“Which speaks for itself, don’t you think, Marshal?”

“Objective reasonableness, then,” Raylan ventured again, never one to forfeit the last word. “On the part of the representatives of the law? Tim and me?” 

“That’s what I’ve come to question today,” Hitchens affirmed breathlessly, as though the round-about way of getting to his point was all Raylan’s doing rather than his own pontificating. “Was your use of force too great for the task at hand? Was it--as the saying goes--too big a weapon for too small a target?”

“It was a glock,” Tim piped up. “It’s about,” he spread his big hands apart and gauged the size of the weapon he’d used against the driver and Charles Weaver. 

When Vasquez finally saw fit to interject, his patience had grown thin. “Charles Weaver and Robert Tanner did kidnap and intend to kill two U.S. Marshals, Gene. That’s a big target.”

“The threat was there,” Raylan affirmed. “In fact, it was just _here,_ ” Raylan drew his arm back and pressed two fingers against head, positioned exactly as he remembered the driver had his pistol.

“I do not doubt the threat to _your_ life, Deputy Givens,” Hitchens said, sidestepping Raylan’s larger point. “I speak to the _spirit_ of the law.” 

“Never mind that the _letter_ has our asses covered,” Raylan growled. 

Turning to face Tim, Hitchens asked, “Was Charles Weaver unarmed when you attacked him?”

“Naw, he had two arms,” Tim grinned. Raylan only shook his head; the Quarles fiasco wasn’t so long ago that AUSA and Internal Affairs needed to hear it being lobbed around as a joke. 

Hitchens, who wasn’t familiar with the case, only frowned and readjusted his line of questioning. “You’re an Army Ranger, are you not?”

“I was,” Tim corrected.

“That sort of life never really leaves you, though, does it?”

“I don’t piss in my pants if I’m busy doing something, anymore,” Tim deadpanned. “Then again, I really only met that milestone last month.” 

“Big day,” Raylan concurred. 

Frustrated, Hitchens cut to the chase: “There’s concern that you sought to impart greater harm than necessary on Mr. Weaver.”

“Is there,” Tim droned. Beyond the coroner’s report for the driver and Weaver, Tim saw a selection of other files laid out before Hitchens, including faxed copies of Raylan’s and his own most recent medical reports. Tim recognized the hospital’s emblem on all of the sheets--save for one, which bore the name of a nondescript clinic he’d sought out in the city of Danville, an hour outside of Lexington. Hitchens' short, pudgy fingers brought it to the top of his pile. 

“You were tested for...” Hitchens made a face as if he was scandalized. Before Raylan could cut in with any grand pronouncements about legality or invasion of privacy, Tim leaned back, adopting an easy expectancy.

“I was due,” Tim said coolly. “This Kentucky tail, you know. And check the date on that, huh? On my own dime, two days _after_ Uncle Sam paid for my cast.” Tim waited until Hitchens scanned the page and, with obvious reluctance, lifted his gaze to meet Tim’s. 

“All clean,” Tim assured, trading his ease for an expression of faux-interest that he just as quickly chewed up and spit out. “‘Case you’re interested.” He flirtatiously winked an eye and puckered his lips. Hitchens visibly recoiled. 

Wide-eyed, Vasquez glanced to Raylan, who hesitated only a split second before mirroring Tim’s two gestures at Vasquez. Initially stunned, Vasquez quickly folded, laughing and closing the folder spread open before him. 

“He’s yanking your chain, Gene,” Vasquez said, eyes shifting between Raylan and Tim. “I’ve been questioning this one all morning,” he directed his pen towards Tim, “And this one... the last six, seven months or so?” 

“It’s never enough time,” Raylan said dreamily. 

Vasquez stood and began to tidy Hitchens’ materials, believing he’d found an out from where the conversation was heading. “I think we’re done here, Gene.”

Hitchens made a mad grab for the medical files, which Raylan had snatched up. 

“Jesus, Tim,” Raylan teased, pretending to skim through the open file. “How are you even alive with a heart rate that low?” He closed the files and handed them off to Vasquez, then stood and collected Tim’s crutches. Together, the two marshals bid a hasty retreat to the conference room doors, issuing their mild thanks for Vasquez’s time.

Hitchens called out, “I still have questions--!” 

Halfway out the door, Tim stuck his head back in and nodded agreeably. “Well, Gene--can I call you Gene?--you’ve got my Social Security Number, my blood type, my phone number... You wanna know how many times I piss and shit a day, or anything else beyond the scope of your investigation, you give me a call.” 

“Fuckin’ wierdos,” Hitchens muttered as he gathered his files and notes. 

Vasquez was next out of the conference room, practically running into Art in under three steps.

“I’ve never seen a man on crutches _run_ ,” Art observed, issuing Vasquez a stony glare. “Or a man who’s about 70% legs try and catch up with him. All I know is they’re bringing lunch for the office, so don’t you and Columbo in there stop them, you get me?” 

Vasquez related to Art that the case was more-or-less closed. 

“Well, which is it?”

Vasquez shook his head. “Have a good weekend, Art.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) I stole this right off of Wikipedia. So did Hitchens.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was meant to be a short chapter, goddamnit.

“Empty handed, Raylan?” 

Art and Rachel were standing over Tim’s desk, discussing options for a case Rachel had been working off-and-on for the past month. She looked focused and--briefly--annoyed that Raylan had come in, all muddy cowboy boots and somehow deserving of Art’s full attention. 

“Only momentarily,” Raylan clarified, stepping into the bullpen and pointedly _not_ removing his rain-splattered coat. “I know where he’s headed.” 

“Well don’t leave us in suspense,” Rachel deadpanned, snapping a folder out of Tim’s hands. 

“The VFW Club,” Raylan glanced from Art to Tim. “Tim--”

“Shit, _yes._ I’m in.” Tim, who hadn’t left the office in over two weeks, pushed back from his desk, drew on his jacket, and fitted himself with his crutches in record time. He didn’t bother looking to Art for permission; Raylan had already done that, and there was no need to give the Chief a big head about these things. 

The rubber stoppers on his crutches screeched as he halted and turned, addressing Rachel only briefly before following Raylan towards the elevators: “If I thought you needed any help, Rachel, I’d stay.” 

“High praise,” Rachel muttered, watching with Art as their colleagues departed. 

“I’m not worried,” Rachel said, noting that it took Art a moment to come back around to the work at hand. He stared unseeingly at one of the copious mugshots taken of Rachel’s fugitive. 

“That makes one of us,” Art returned sullenly. Then, quirking a too-severe frown, he amended: “About your fugitive, I mean. Real worried you’re going to snap his neck under the weight of all this paperwork.”

Rachel smirked. “Good save, Chief.” 

\- 

Tim napped for a short while, finding more and more that the exhaustive nights of drug-induced sleep simply did not agree with him. When he awoke, it was because the car had come to a complete stop and Tim felt eyes watching him. Luckily, they were only Raylan’s, glittering with amusement as Tim blearily stared up at him. 

“Hey, sport,” Raylan teased. “You want an ice cream?”

Using his thumb to wipe drool from his lower lip, Tim sat up and grunted a low and barely discernable, _“What.”_

Raylan scrunched his nose and patted Tim on the knee before exiting the car. “I’ll get you an ice cream.”

Even sleeping through most of it--and alternatively sitting with an ice cream cone in hand--Tim found the drive to Harlan long and needlessly unpleasant. Tim couldn’t regret his decision to help Raylan get into the VFW Club, however; otherwise, he’d be stuck at the office, coordinating a raid he wouldn’t even take part in. 

If Tim was honest with himself as to why he routinely stuck his neck out for Raylan, doing him untold favors and sacrificing a number of hours to drive to and from Harlan, he’d have to admit his compliance didn’t rest in camaraderie or friendliness; he merely liked the way Raylan asked. He was smart and quick-witted, and combined with a charming drawl and a tendency towards impatience, Raylan rarely found Tim adverse to his wishes. 

For as long as Raylan had been out of Harlan, Tim liked to think the man had never truly left. He had a way of talking that elevated him above those he left behind--the roughnecks and the drug pushers alike, mostly suggestive of Raylan’s seeking of an education where others had not--but still tied him inexplicably to the likes of Boyd Crowder, the home grown criminal, and Wynn Duffy, the Dixie Mafia hot-shot. They all shared the same regional blend of crazy that Tim found helped brighten the slower days. Tim came to think of these characters and Raylan as oddly inseparable. Raylan and Boyd chased each others tails while Duffy ghosted around town in his RV. Tim loved the absurdity of it all. 

In the car, Raylan talked. Tim listened, amused, until he didn’t feel like listening anymore. He could turn away from distractions and imagine a quiet space, then occupy it in his head. It wasn’t a trick he learned in the Rangers; in fact, it was the polar opposite of his sniper training, which kept him hyper-aware of his surroundings. Rather, it was an something he couldn’t remember a time he didn’t practice. It was called any number of things when Tim was growing up: day dreaming, a lack of respect, stupidity. An ex excitedly likened it to meditation, or Tim actively _finding his center,_ and needless to say that relationship didn’t last. 

Tim engaged him sometimes, too, because in the silence his mind plotted questions Raylan hadn’t voiced, and Tim would rather keep it that way. 

“You _know_ that the radio doesn’t hold it together up and down these hills,” Tim spoke plainly and slowly, like he might with a child, “And you’ve got the kind of sound system in here worth stealing. But you don’t have an iPod, you don’t carry any CDs--”

Raylan gestured with the remaining stem of his ice cream cone at the open glove compartment. “I’ve _got_ CDs!” 

“Books on tape, like somebody’s grandmother.”

Shrugging, Raylan said, “I like Robert B. Parker.”

“I think you’re burying the lede here, man. How do you have Louis L’Amour books _on cassette_? Explain that to me, and I’ll buy the ice cream next we stop.” 

Raylan shook his head. “Found ‘em with my Aunt Helen’s things. Didn’t think she ever liked him, but there you go. One of life’s great mysteries.” Taking the final bite of his ice cream, Raylan added, “And I want a Dip Cone.” 

Tim was thoughtfully quiet for a while before asking, “Does Harlan have a bookstore?” Upon receiving a flat look from Raylan that said _Can we give the hillbilly shit a rest, please?_ , he amended, “Okay, a hole in the ground where all the good people throw the devil’s music. Maybe we can scope out the selection before a horde of preachers comes to burn it.” Tim closed the glove compartment, careful of Raylan’s odd collection. “There’s gotta be something other than Prairie Home Companion, here.”

With a soft click of his tongue, Raylan surrendered. “Bring me something you’d like to listen to next time, I promise I’ll play it. _If it’ll shut you up._ ”

Tim smiled triumphantly. “You’ll play it because it’s amazing.”

“Already got something picked out? A book, because I’ve heard what you call music and I am having none of it.”

Tim stretched his neck to the left, then the right, considering. He finally settled on Douglas Adams, only to encounter another blank stare from Raylan. He was not certain this was Raylan’s way of getting more information or telling Tim to shut up without saying so; much of Raylan’s behavior towards Tim had changed over the past month, blank stares included. 

“Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” Tim prompted, and Raylan shook his head, mystified. “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe? So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish?”

“You get one,” Raylan said, throwing the condescending parent-to-child tone back in Tim’s face.

“There are five,” Tim said, frowning. “What the hell, Rachel said you were secretly cultured.” 

“Given that list, I think I still am.”

Tim smiled again, eyes half-lidded as he stared out of the car window at the darkening clouds, foretelling of rain and the coming evening. “Fine, we can both be stereotypes and I’ll bring the _Regeneration Trilogy._ ” 

Rather than show his ignorance of the title, Raylan made a mental note to look it up later. As the arduous dirt roads become more so--even forfeiting the occasional spread of concrete--the two marshals were fast approaching the Harlan county line. 

\- 

“He ain’t here,” Raylan growled, surveying the room. “Goddamnit.” 

Tim chewed the frown that threatened to twist into place. He hadn’t even thought to ask _how_ Raylan knew Herb Weston would be at the VFW Club--if it was a hunch or a solid lead or even a generous tip. Above all else, Tim had wanted free of the office, out from under Rachel and Art, and away from the thoughts that plagued him during the more tedious hours of work. It was foolish, he realized belatedly, to count on Raylan to deliver all those things.

“Keep looking,” Tim urged needlessly, suddenly feeling invested in a case of which he knew only the scantest details. He didn’t want to mirror Raylan’s earlier venture into the office--cold and wet and empty-handed.

After ten minutes of searching, Raylan disappeared and returned from his car, Herb Weston’s file in hand. He tore out and handed to Tim one of the photos of Weston, then manned himself with the other--a mugshot. 

Tim accepted the photo and the instruction Raylan had wordlessly passed along with it, but his attention was elsewhere. “Just a second-- _Woz?_ ”

A man seated alone at a table lifted his head and grinned, seeing Tim. He had sandy blonde hair and a browned, sun-beaten face. If it wasn’t for the leathery scarring spotting the man’s strong jaw and completely obliterating his right ear, Raylan might have made him for a movie star. Tim cut a path between some occupied tables, met the man part-way, and the two embraced. It was an awkward maneuver for Tim, who ended up nearly dropping one of his crutches. 

“Ho-lee shit,” Woz laughed, clapping Tim on the shoulder as they pulled apart. “Tim Gutterson, you are a vision. How you got outta that shithole alive being underfoot all the time, I’ll never know.” 

Tim had trouble smothering the delight that shone from his face; he hadn’t had as fortuitous a meeting as this in a long time. Woz looked fit and all-together, which was a far cry from the state Tim often observed of his fellow veterans. 

Woz seemed to recognize this in Tim, too, and couldn’t help himself from engulfing his friend in another hug. “Goddamn, you’re shorter than I remember.”

Tim grinned and returned fire: “Helmet and boots’ll add a couple inches. Not where it counts, though.” 

“Don’t I know it,” Woz lamented jokingly. He scratched absently at a patch of sparse hair and scar tissue where his ear should have been. A good head taller than Tim, broad-shouldered and muscular, Woz never seemed short of confidence. Awareness of his disfigurement--itself minimal, Tim thought, remembering the accident that caused it--nonetheless made the man seem small, like his powerful mass was a shell to hide under. 

Tim studied his friend, at once pleased at finding a familiar face in Kentucky, and concerned. “The hell are you doing in Harlan County, man?” 

“Looking to leave, if I’m honest,” Woz answered. “But a guy’s gotta work, or at least try.”

“What happened to--” Tim racked his brain, finding it difficult to keep up with the many lives of his friends. Pre-and post-war, the men in his unit scattered, leading variations of the same trail of drug abuse, physical or mental ailments, minimum work opportunities, and family troubles. “Teaching skydiving?”

Woz laughed and shook his head. “You tell _one_ joke about jumping and getting your head sucked into the plane engine and your clientele just _plummets._ Yourself?” 

“Work,” Tim concurred, opening his jacket some to reveal his badge. “U.S. Marshal Service up in Lexington.” 

“No shit?”

“Yeah, they’ll let just about anyone in,” Tim smirked, nodding to introduce Raylan and drive his point home. “Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens, this is Mike Wozzen, former Army Ranger.” 

“Good to meet you,” Raylan said, a little distractedly as he continued to scan the room for his fugitive. He shook Woz’s hand and looked him over. “And thank you for being a big, hulking badass. I’m glad you’re not all twelve-year-olds.”

“Raylan’s part of the Marshal Service’s elderly outreach program,” Tim drawled.

“You should have seen him at 23,” Woz grinned, ignoring Tim’s jab. “A surly little son of a bitch. Couldn’t afford to lose the weight he did in Ranger School. Still beat my ass, though.” His smile was little more than a grimace when he took in the state of Tim’s leg. “Wouldn’t today. You all right there?”

“It’s nothing,” Tim assured his friend. “Sports injury.”

Woz’s encouraging smile didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Basketball, I bet.” 

Raylan dismissed himself to press on with his search, and Tim followed suit after trading contact information with Woz and promising they’d meet again the following week. 

Exhausting their search for Herb Weston, Raylan and Tim took their leave of the bar shortly after seven. It was a testament to how much Tim wanted out of the office that he’d take a cumulative six hours out of his day for what amounted to a half-hour search effort and a complimentary ice cream sandwich. Raylan, who often found himself traveling the same shoddy roads to-and-from Harlan, had long ago assumed the task as part of his day, and did not mind what had weaseled into his life as routine. 

It started to rain--only a light drizzle, but enough for Raylan to take notice and sigh as he followed Tim out of the stonework building. It was his private belief that his hat wasn’t lost forever, but merely lost at present; it was an unnamed victim of the same series of events that nearly spelled the end for himself and Tim. At least, such was the reasoning that kept Raylan from buying a new hat.

Raylan opened Tim’s side of the car first, took his crutches and tossed them across the back seats before venturing, collar turned-up, to the driver’s side. 

“Friend of yours, huh?” After closing his door to the rain, Raylan swept a hand over his hair. “Army really does send you boys to some shitty destinations.” 

Tim was hunched over in his seat and using the end of his jacket sleeve pulled over the palm of his hand to dry his cast. It was spotted in a few places, worst of all at the toe. “Said he’s looking for work.”

“Big boy like him?” Raylan asked, trying to keep the accusation from his voice. He left _”In Harlan?”_ unsaid. 

Tim gave up on preserving the sanctity of his cast. “I’ll look into it,” he answered, not missing Raylan’s meaning. “Any luck locating your man?” 

Raylan nodded as he pulled away from the building and returned to the road that had led them there. “Got word that he went a little hard on the bourbon tonight, stumbled out some half-hour ago, keys in hand.” 

Tim nodded and stared out his window, his keen eyes watching as the dark trees and overgrowth crowded the road. “So if he wasn’t keeled over in the parking lot, he ought to be wrapped around one of these trees here?”

Raylan gave an unimpressed snort. “What is it about you outsiders that makes you think we Kentucky boys can’t hold our whiskey?” 

“A truly effective D.A.R.E. program,” Tim drawled, then sat up and had to suppress a smirk as he spoke, “On your left, 20-odd yards.”

“Shit,” Raylan cursed, noticing the great gap in the brush line about the size of a truck. He started to pull over.

“Hey!” Tim threw an arm out and jerked the wheel away from Raylan, none-too-smoothly guiding him back onto the road. The car swung out some before steadying, alternatively throwing both Tim and Raylan against their respective side windows. 

“The hell, Tim!” Raylan shoved Tim’s arm away from the console and steadied the car. The roads were still slick and Tim’s move hadn’t let them forget that. 

Tim squinted across the way as they drove past the scene. “Shoulder of the road is all torn up,” he said, sounding angry that Raylan hadn’t noticed it himself. “He was forced off. Keep driving, I’ll call in locals.”

Raylan gawked at his friend, his confusion churning slowly into annoyance. “We can at least check it out, Tim. Jesus Christ, when have the local PD down in Harlan ever been any help?” 

Tim issued him a hard stare. “Let ‘em be human shields then, or does this not look fucking familiar to you, Raylan?” 

It didn’t register with Raylan all at once. He started to argue, but managed to hold his tongue before he could do any real damage. 

On the face of things, Raylan supposed it did resonate with their earlier misadventure: a tip-off taking them into a secluded space... but Raylan didn’t feel it. The roads were wet and leading to and from a bar; a car accident was practically expected. As the angry buzz of adrenaline died down between his ears, Raylan thought he heard something else beyond the constant patter of rain against the windshield. He was unable to convince himself it wasn’t the racing heartbeat of his stone-faced colleague. 

“Tim...” 

Tim’s face colored--Raylan wasn’t hearing things, or else Tim was, too--but he was adamant that they keep driving past the swallowed-up crash. He placed a call for Harlan police to check out the scene (answered by a deputy, Raylan presumed, because Sheriff Shelby Parlow had enough sense not to argue with a request from a U.S. Marshal), then took in a breath and made his case to Raylan. 

“ _If it is him,_ ” Tim prefaced, then licked his lips and continued, “If he’s dead, he’s not getting any deader. If he’s just banged up some, he’ll keep until locals get to him. And if I’m just being a pussy, you’ve got the rest of the week to give me shit about it. But we’re not stopping.” 

Tim’s heart was still racing. He reached over and turned on the radio, but only got static. The low hum was enough to spare Tim’s pride, and both men left the device on. 

“It’s Friday,” Raylan observed belatedly. They’d driven no less than twenty minutes in uneasily-brokered silence. 

Tim shifted in his seat and noted the line of police cars advancing their way. “Yeah. I feel like I take enough of your shit.”

\- 

Tim arrived to work on Monday grumpy and wearing a brace on his foot instead of his cast. It was undoubtedly an improvement, but Tim had forgone his crutches as well, and in the three minutes he’d walked from the parking lot to the marshal offices, he greatly regretted his decision. 

He skipped lunch to return home and retrieve his crutches, then headed off any questions with a scowl. He set about his work until, slowly, the scowl fell away. Tim punched away at his computer quietly and only twice made an attempt to retrieve a file for himself, only for Rachel to intercept him at the door and firmly direct him back to his desk. Around two, Rachel pawned off phone duty on him and Tim’s low drawl warmed Raylan’s ears for the next few hours. 

“Aliens,” Tim said after a long spell of alternatively listening to his latest phone call and stacking dry erase markers one atop the other. “Like, outer-space aliens? Excuse me, _taco_ aliens? All right, we take that real seriously here, lemme transfer you.” Tim hung up and muttered something unpleasant before slowly dismantling his afternoon’s work. 

“Can I get one of those?” Raylan asked, watching as Tim’s nimble hands hesitated for only a moment before selecting a marker and lobbing it over the stunted wall dividing their workspaces. 

Raylan caught the marker and turned it over in his hands a moment. “Tim,” he called, tossing the item back. “Can I get a green one?”

“What’s the word on your guy?” Tim asked, withholding the marker. 

“Crashed into a tree, died on impact, according to Sheriff Shelby.” Raylan watched over the partition between their desks as Tim looked at his pile of dry erase markers as if he couldn’t figure out where he’d accumulated them all. Shrugging, he opened a drawer of his desk and swept them all in. 

“I got Lexington forensics to go down, take a look at the scene,” Raylan continued. “They’re working to match tire tracks or some other useless CSI shit.”

“No one else at the scene, then?” Tim passed along the marker--a kind of apology for pitching a fit earlier. 

“Actually,” Raylan seemed reluctant to answer at first, until he shook the reasoning he had for keeping quiet from his head. “Four good samaritans on an evening stroll had stopped to help. Funny--no one pulled Herb from his car.” 

“How about that,” Tim said, feigning disinterest as again, his heart began to race. He wrestled his nerves down deep into the pit of his stomach and asked coolly, “Locals get names?”

Raylan shook his head. “Told you they were good-for-nothing.”

“Yeah,” Tim returned flatly, eyes trained on his computer screen. “ _You really told me._ ”

“Maybe you were right about it being a set-up,” Raylan said, keeping his voice low. “Is that what you wanna hear?”

Tim threw up his hands in exasperation. “I’m glad to hear it after the fact, rather than see it for myself!” he said, and supposed if he sounded on-edge it was only because the mantra he’d kept over the past weekend-- _that was stupid, it was nothing, you were scared, don’t be fucking scared_ \--was suddenly breaking down. He felt relieved--and right. While Tim liked the feeling of vindication, he didn’t get to enjoy it for long. His brain was quick to turn the tables on him and build up a new and weightier reality out of the broken pieces of the last one: _you were right to be scared._

“You hungry?” Raylan asked, oblivious to Tim’s troubles in a way that Tim might have appreciated in any other instance. “Let’s get an early dinner, suss out the details.”

“What’s there to suss?” Tim returned, taking a short breath to settle his nerves. “We didn’t pass the accident coming in, meaning there was a very short window between our getting to the VFW and Herb’s untimely death.”

“Half an hour, they said.”

“Who said?”

Raylan racked his brain. “Second bartender I chatted up. Well, no--she directed me to his drinking buddies.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “Alleged drinking buddies.” 

“Young guys, fit.”

Remembering the pair he’d seen Raylan seek out in the bar, Tim recalled, “One dark-haired, barrel-chested, maybe 5’10” and the other upwards to 6’2”, blonde and buzzed. Marine, if I were to hazard a guess.” 

“Hazard away,” Raylan said, frowning. “What the hell, weren’t you talking to your friend?” 

“And keeping an eye on you, yeah.” 

Raylan rolled his eyes at the insinuation. It was his feeling that, for all the shit he got himself into, he could be counted on to get himself out of a goodly sum without the aid of others. “So we just missed him. Passed him on the road coming in, even.” 

Tim nodded in agreement. “Could have been sobering up in the parking lot when we arrived, too. I didn’t see anyone, but,” he shrugged one shoulder.

“I’m getting real tired of this shit,” Raylan scowled. He leaned back in his chair and smoothed a hand down the length of his patterned black tie. “That’s two fugitives I didn’t get to bring in.”

A tiny crease cut into Tim’s brow, largely born of Raylan’s easy nonchalance concerning the span of dead bodies queuing up in his wake. “They’re not after you,” Tim said, playing up the realization, “They’re out to sully your arrest quota.” 

Raylan touched his index finger to his nose in agreement. Idly spinning back and forth in his chair, he mused, “It’s probably Rachel.”

Tim grinned. “Mystery solved.” 

Coffee mug in hand, Rachel didn’t miss a beat as she approached her desk, the file of her recently apprehended fugitive in hand as she prepared to make the appropriate changes. _Empty handed?_ wasn’t a question Rachel anticipated ever hearing from Art. 

“What’s probably me?” she asked, gliding down to her chair and smoothly crossing one leg over the other.

“Best Marshal in the office,” Raylan answered promptly. 

“Best dressed,” Tim added. 

“Best arresting record.” 

Rachel brought her mug of coffee to her lips, obscuring her charmed smile. “There’s no ‘probably’ about it.” 

\- 

By late October, Tim had ceased the use of his crutches completely, and was regulated only to the wearing of a greatly padded boot over his pants leg and sock. To Tim, it looked like a modified piece of body armor, light like kevlar but awkward with the thick rings of velcro. 

Rachel teased him about his socks--a small hole at his toe appeared to grow larger as the day went on--and Tim lobbed easy fire in return, suggesting that his and Raylan’s kidnapping, beating, and planned execution was all a ruse to ensure that Rachel bought him socks for Christmas. 

Rachel’s smile was tight and lacked the usual warm she favored for only Tim or Art. She smoothed a stack of papers on Tim’s desk and said, “You try too hard, soldier.”

Later that afternoon, as people filed tiredly out of the office--either on assignment or beginning their evenings--Tim returned from the restroom to find a small, flat box resting on his desk. It bore the logo from a menswear boutique downtown, and Tim opened it curiously. Inside was a single pair of thick, woolly socks.

“You spoil me,” Tim called as Rachel re-entered the bullpen, a court file in hand and a yawn muffled into her fist.

“Wasn’t me,” she corrected him, observing the open box and its contents. “Brooks family rule: no opening presents until Christmas morning.”

Tim glanced at Raylan, who glanced at Tim. 

“Now she’s gotta get you something else,” Raylan said, standing and gathering his coat and hat. 

“ _What?_ ” 

Raylan kept walking; the gesture’s purpose alluded even him, who’d joined Rachel in teasing Tim, and had not felt particularly bothered by the fact, later. He’d found himself in front of the shop while on an errand, and decided to see the teasing through to its ultimate end. He didn’t foresee Rachel’s wary looks between the two of them, or Tim’s outright bemusement. 

“Running from a cripple?” Tim asked as he approached Raylan, held up at the elevator. He, too, had donned his coat and tightly tucked Raylan’s gift under one arm. “That’s not fair.” 

“Do you talk to anybody?”

Tim didn’t respond right away; Raylan’s question may have been obscure enough, but Tim did not want his answer overheard. They entered the elevator with a pair of lawyers who exited after just one floor (leaving Tim and Raylan narrowing their eyes at the backs of the heads, wondering why they didn’t simply take the stairs). 

The elevator cleared, Tim replied coolly, “I talk to everybody. Art, Rachel, my department-ordered therapist--everybody. You wanna talk to one of them about what happened, feel free.”

“I wanna talk to you.” 

“I’m done talking,” Tim said, adjusting his footing as the elevator came to an abrupt stop. “But I’m about ready to start drinking.” He held his arm across the open passage, indicating for Raylan to lead the way. 

\- 

Raylan chose a surprisingly pleasant bar. All warm colors, dark woodwork, and once-plush seats flattered by wear and use, the place was a welcome alternative for the dives favored by both men. 

Further, the bar’s denizens showed no likeness to those who most often crossed the marshals’ path, and for that, Tim was grateful. There didn’t seem to be much left of a Kentucky untouched by the persons and activities occupying Harlan County, but what little still remained was awash in good music, great bourbon, and less-than-fine dining. It was in that part of Kentucky that Raylan Givens and Tim Gutterson shared drinks and fries on a Thursday evening.

Tim took the time to soundly kick Raylan’s ass at pool, and laughed easily when Raylan grumbled out a challenge to a game of HORSE. They played a while with a pair of girls dressed in barely-there denim skirts and silky tops. 

When Raylan seemed to be getting a little too cozy with the blonde, Tim eyed his watch in mock-surprise. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “Dad, we missed your birthday countdown! Ladies, how about a song for my dad--he’s just turned fifty-five.” 

“ _Dad_?” Raylan mouthed, face stricken with disgust. Then, “ _Fifty-five?_ ” 

The girls made their excuses, then their exit.

“The hell?” Raylan said, never in his life more perturbed by Tim’s sense of humor. 

“You’ve got pairs of jeans older than them,” Tim said, smiling after the girls who moved on and settled in on either side of a short man seated at the bar. 

“Or maybe you’re the jealous type,” Raylan snapped. “Goddamnit it--fifty-five?”

“You look good for fifty-five,” Tim assured. 

When they retired to a corner booth with their beers, Raylan told stories and Tim, despite looking bored, egged his fellow marshal on for more tales of backwoods hijinks and mayhem. 

Tim noticed--but did not make it apparent--that Raylan didn’t share stories about his eighteen, nineteen-year-old self. Like Art and Rachel, Tim knew the single detail Raylan affixed to those years: digging coal with Boyd Crowder. Taking liberties with the lack of details, Tim made up the story Raylan never liked to share. It was short--shorter than most of Raylan’s stories, anyway--but just as true. 

At eighteen, Raylan Givens had no other prospects. 

Tim remembered forging his father’s name and enlisting in the army at seventeen. That’s what boys did, he’d convinced himself, if they were desperate enough to get out. They made their plans and slipped quietly away without a word to anyone who might be of a mind to stop them. 

_Eighteen to nineteen,_ Tim thought confusedly as another of Raylan’s stories began and ended at sixteen. _That’s a lifetime._

 _What stopped you?_ was a terrible question, Tim knew. Family, finances, resources, health--and given the era, it could have been that Raylan simply did not want to wade into a war and, hell, Tim could understand that. It wasn’t for everybody. 

Raylan’s storytelling disappeared into his drink. He nursed it quietly and observed the room. 

Minutes passed, and while Tim was content with the silence, he knew it was eating Raylan alive.

“You got something you wanna say?” Tim asked, voice thick. 

“I’m trying to respect your request for drinking, not talking.”

Tim made a sweeping gesture to indicate the past few hours. “That was you, trying?” 

“I don’t figure the timeline,” Raylan admitted after a time. He hoped he’d get an answer from something Tim could decipher, something real and rational and permissible for discussion. It was no mystery to either man what was on Raylan’s mind when he fell quiet in Tim’s presence. “File’s shut and all, but I’m curious. You said you were awake when we stopped. Hell, you were able to place the last exit. When did they say they were going to torch the car? How long were you sitting with that?”

“ _I don’t know,_ is the short of it,” Tim answered. “But you’re probably after some shit you’re gonna regret asking for, huh?”

“Ain’t it always the case?” Raylan smirked, then found himself staring absently at his beer. “It’s been on my mind, Tim. More than I’d like. And because I’m a selfish bastard, I thought I’d take you out, buy you drinks, foster some good will, and then shit all over it.” 

Tim moved a hand to cover his drink.

Eventually--and because Raylan had asked--Tim conceded an answer. He spoke slowly, feeling and fleshing it out as he went. He didn’t entirely regret not having a stocked response; it allowed him to get away with giving the matter very little previous thought. “Well, I spent the majority of the trip pretty goddamn clear we were going to die, however they’d like it done. Explosives were in the front seat. I got a good look. I yelled for you to wake up, but they said they’d already put a bullet in your brain. I didn’t smell blood, but stopped yelling anyway, in case they had a mind to see it through.” Tim finished his beer and with the pitcher, poured himself another. His fourth since they’d retired to the booth, Raylan noted. 

“They put the bomb on top of the car. Stupid, but I didn’t say anything.” Tim half-grinned. “I heard a countdown, but the thing didn’t go off. Half an hour later another car pulled up, there was some arguing, then nothing. I yelled for you some more, then... passed out, I guess.” He frowned. “That’s kind of lame, right? Anyway, that’s when you woke the fuck up and made yourself useful, for goddamn once.” Tim was grinning openly by the end of it, as well as making fast work of his drink. 

“Okay,” Raylan nodded, forging a look of contentment on his face when in reality, he was nothing of the sort. 

“If you wanted to know how it felt,” Tim continued, eyeing Raylan speculatively, “You’d know. It felt like waiting to die. You feel like shit, now?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

The sound system in the bar played “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

Raylan started in on another story of his--skipping now past the last of his teen years and into his thirties, something about a case taking him up to the border, then _accidentally_ into Canada, where he made the best of the situation and took in a Neil Young performance in Etobicoke, Ontario. 

It was one of the instances where Tim very quickly stopped listening.

“How are _you_ holding up?” Tim interrupted, and Raylan was reluctant to admit he was surprised by the sincere interest Tim showed. “Wasn’t fun on either end, I imagine,” Tim added, shrugging and occupying himself with his beer. 

Raylan supposed Tim knew a thing or two about survivor’s guilt, which Raylan reasoned--in a way--was exactly what turned his gut to ice every time he saw the younger man.

“Can’t get worked up about that shit,” Tim said, rescuing them both from another bout of silence. “S’what they told me. Besides, you lost your hat.”

“And I mourn its loss in my own way,” Raylan said, downing the rest of his second. “If I had a memorial service, would you spare a few words in her honor?” 

Tim was contemplative for a moment before breaking into a broad grin and moving to stand from his seat. In a rare moment of spectacle, Tim raised his drink and proclaimed loudly, “What if the things you love are perishable? All you know then is that they will perish. You will perish too and perhaps that is the answer; that those who love things that are immortal and believe in them are immortal themselves and live on with them while those that love things that die and believe in them die and are dead as the things they love.” (2)

Raylan had to bite his lower lip to keep from laughing. “It is a fucking beautiful thing,” he wheezed, “That you are drunk enough to quote Hemingway. That’s method.” Tim took a bow and then his seat, ignoring the curious glances his performance had accumulated from around the room.

“Found that book in a friend of mine’s pack, after he’d bit it,” Tim said, having lost his sense of propriety somewhere between his last two drinks. “Firefight, he got hit. Half of his skull, blown away to nothing.”

Tim licked his lips and reminded himself that Raylan didn’t want war stories--Tim found people rarely did, after hearing a real one.

“In the book, that one section was highlighted and I remember--I carried it around for days, re-reading it. Oscar--my friend--wasn’t much of a reader. Maybe Maxim, but not Hemingway, you know? But it was a leather bound copy of this book, right, all soft and bent like he’d been carrying it around for _years._ ” Tim’s eyes lit up as he spoke, and he touched his fingers together on one hand as if he could feel the weight and warmth of the thing even after it was long gone. “I thought I had this incredible insight into him, and I read the book and the passage over and over and over.” Tim lifted his beer, but the glass never made it to his lips. “Two weeks later our CO popped me in the mouth. Book was his, I had the wrong pack.” 

Tim smiled like it was one of his happier memories. 

Raylan smiled, too, but not so broadly. “You get some insight into your CO, then?”

“Yeah, he was a pretentious asshole. Who the fuck brings Hemingway to a goddamn war? Pretentious assholes, that’s who.”

Gossip around the office had it that Art thought Tim had a drinking problem. Raylan didn’t know the source of the notion, but for what it was worth, Raylan hoped that Art at least knew Tim wasn’t a sombre, sorry drunk. He was eager and flirty and--it drove Raylan back to his own drink to think so, but--he seemed happy. 

“You fellas having a good time?”

“Not so much,” Tim said, gamely engaging with the bartender who had come to replace their pitcher and refresh their drinks. For the bartender’s benefit, Tim lifted a hand to indicate Raylan. “He’s boring without his hat.”

The man’s eyebrows quirked as he topped off Raylan, then slowly refilled Tim’s empty mug. He was among the two working, but doubled as a waiter for those seated elsewhere in the bar. Tim had watched him make his rounds. “His hat?”

The man had a long, thin nose that swerved right at the tip, but only slightly--as if he’d slept on it funny. He had thin lips to match, but smiled big and easy.

“It’s a great hat,” Tim assured, wetting his own lips with just the very tip of his pink tongue. “You’d love it.”

“I bet,” the man laughed, then sobered and set his eyes on Tim. “Well, if that’s a dealbreaker and you’d like different company, I’m off in an hour.” 

“Better company,” Tim corrected, a grin splitting his youthful face. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Yeah? Come tell me that in an hour.”

Raylan watched the exchange amusedly, and although he thought it was a bold invitation on the bartender’s part, Tim seemed amenable to the attention. 

Tim raised his glass to Raylan’s after the bartender had gone. “Look,” he said, well on his way to drunk, “I got more beer than you.”

“Be that as it may, I think I’ll stick to asking nicely,” Raylan said. “But you could do worse.”

Tim watched the bubbles from the bottom of his drink rise to meet the foam accumulated on top. He took a long drink from his otherwise untouched glass of water, instead. “How do you know I’m gay?”

“I--what? I was kidding--”

“No,” Tim said, eyes narrowing. “You’ve known for a while. I’m curious on the how.” Tim wiped a hand over his mouth and gestured helplessly. “Besides _that_ glorious display.”

It was as if the easy smile and jovial attitude of the past hour was in limited supply and Raylan had just seen the last of it. 

Raylan scratched his throat and answered honestly, “Ah, I... suspected. When you bailed me an’ Art out at the VFW Club that first time. You showed up in a shirt too big for you, smelling of two different colognes.”

Tim tipped his beer. “Nice catch.”

“Not to mention you blatantly flirting with the soldier at the door...” Raylan remembered the fella; hell, he’d practically sat at the man’s feet with Art, awaiting Tim to grant them entrance. He was a nice kid--he even had two beers brought out for the marshals when they made it apparent that they’d be waiting.

“Plot twist,” Tim said, smiling crookedly. “It was his shirt.”

Had he been any more drunk, Raylan might have slapped the table. Instead, he quirked his eyebrows and raised his glass. “You _dog._ ” 

“That’s why I was late,” Tim replied, looking somewhat pleased with himself. “Took an hour to find the goddamn thing.” He took a drink, then, long and steady. 

Raylan waited until he was finished--thinking the point of the gesture was that Tim needed to refuel on liquid courage in preparation for the question he knew was coming. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“Naw, he just left his shirt at my place.”

“Do you _have_ a--”

“Jesus, no. Shut up.” Tim busied himself with his drink, leaned back and refused to meet Raylan’s eyes.

It slowly dawned on Raylan exactly what he’d asked and what, in turn, he’d discovered. Tim was a closeted gay man, and unhappy. Raylan supposed the two went hand in hand for various reasons. Before he could scold himself for that kind of thinking, however, Raylan was rationalizing it: Tim was young, probably went straight into the military out of high school or a short stint in college. Quiet and mindful as he was, Raylan doubted that Tim couldn’t get away with anything he set his mind to doing, so maybe he’d conquered some new territory of his own in Afghanistan. But then again--maybe he never hazarded the risk. 

Raylan hoped the camps at which Tim was stationed were dry, because taken to drink, the younger marshal could not hide the hunger in his stare as he followed the movements of the junior bartender, who hadn’t returned to their booth, but was presently attending the next one over. 

Tim caught Raylan watching him, and rolled his eyes. “And don’t say what you’re fucking thinking.”

Raylan held up his hands in mock-surrender. “I’m not thinking fucking anything.”

“He admits it,” Tim murmured. 

“What are you worried I might say, Tim?”

“Nothing, so long as you don’t say it.”

A smile twisted at Raylan’s lips. He laughed and bit back a swear, pleased. “That book series you mentioned--I just got it.”

“You uncultured piece of shit,” Tim grinned, thrusting his near-empty glass above his head. “Faggots at war. It’s my rallying cry.”

“Slurs, already? You’ve had enough, my friend.”

“Aw, shit,” Tim grimaced. He was drunk, but not so much so that he failed to realize he’d embarrassed himself. Raylan laughed along with him, both feeling a bit silly, a bit relieved. Raylan was glad to find that the sniper wasn’t without a life separate from the business of killing people--be it in service to his country or the great state of Kentucky--and Tim, alternatively, found himself sat across from a coworker... and a friend. 

“Uh, Rachel knows. Already knew.”

“She make a move on you?” Raylan couldn’t imagine any other instance wherein Tim would share the kind of information he was only releasing now, after untold drinks and a heavy sense of failure. The way Tim prattled off details of his personal self--something he’d never done, not even during the most tedious of stakeouts--suggested to Raylan that, given what he already knew of the man’s state of affairs, Tim didn’t see the point not spilling one more secret. 

“I told her,” Tim answered plainly, then elaborated: “Because I like her better than you.” 

Tim fidgeted for a time--leaned back in his seat, ran a hand over his hair and scratched the base of his neck, then leaned forward and grimaced, as if he was answering to some petty crime-- _yes, okay, I admit it: I stole ink toner from the office. It was just the once, I swear._

“I thought I was going to do that,” he said, again offering more than Raylan had asked of him. “Uh, tell people. But I didn’t want to tell Art, then I didn’t want to tell you, and then I forgot about it, and now it’s been over a year, and fuck _me_ that’s long enough to merit explaining, and I’d really rather not.” He finished off his ramble with another long drink of beer. 

Raylan considered all this.

“How did you _forget_?”

Tim shrugged. “Dry spell.”

“Why didn’t you want to tell me?” Raylan asked, sounding affronted. 

“Because,” Tim began slowly, first considering a way of sparing Raylan’s feelings, but ultimately deciding against it. “You’re an asshole. You would have thought I was hitting on you.”

“I would have _hoped_ ,” Raylan said, splaying his hands open as if to show he was armed only with mild disappointment. The gesture brought a small, bemused grin to Tim’s face. 

“Yeah? Keep hoping, cowboy.”

Raylan shook his head, as confused with Tim as he had been with the murders befalling his two fugitives. He’d have liked to line them all up--bail jumpers, murderers, and secretive colleagues alike--and hold them answerable to the high crime of giving Raylan Givens grief. “What the hell? A lot of men find me attractive,” Raylan boasted, then, as if he deserved a medal, he added: “I lived in _Miami,_ Tim.”

“That’s the other thing,” Tim said, eyes drifting to a far corner of the bar and resting there, hard. “This ain’t Miami.” 

Tim wiped his mouth again and pushed his beer into the center of the table with his index and middle fingers, signaling an end to his participation in the evening. “Raylan,” he drawled. “Is there a light that shines out of your ass that only Boyd Crowder can see?”

Raylan twisted around in his seat. “Aw, shit.” 

Boyd strolled over, strict as a board in slim jeans and a stiff, buttoned collar. He didn’t have the same slinky walk as Raylan, or if he did, it was beaten straight during his time in the military. 

“Raylan, old friend,” Boyd greeted, occupying the mouth of their booth. “What a fortuitous meeting.” 

“Must be,” Raylan replied coldly. “This is a little out of your way, Boyd.” 

“I must admit I thought I’d take in the drive, and see what has you so enamoured that you’d see fit to visit me so often. Running into you is just a wild happenstance.” 

“You say that like I’m giving any thought as to why you’re here,” Raylan returned. “I’ll chalk it up to my shitty luck, unless you plan to spend the next-last five seconds you’re here convincing me otherwise.” 

Boyd smiled at him like the notion of brevity on his part was _real sweet, bless your heart._ Turning his attention to Tim, Boyd displayed a weak salute that Tim did not return. 

“Heard you got fucked up, Deputy.” Boyd said, drawing his shining eyes over Tim. “Didn’t hear it was the foot, though.”

Tim’s response wasn’t immediate; there was a breath of hesitation, a slight inhale of air on Tim’s part that seemed somehow undue or unnecessary. 

“Doctors couldn’t very well put my ass in a sling,” Tim said, willing himself to believe that Boyd somehow knew what he knew, and that owning up to it would take away some of the sting. 

“I did hear right about one thing,” Boyd mused, palms on the table as though he sought to literally cage the marshals in as his audience. “You’re about as pretty as they say.”

As Raylan made an effort to stand, Tim gave the table between them a shove, effectively pinning Raylan into place. Boyd was gearing up to shut Tim down with a barrage of insinuations or outright lies, certainly, but part of Tim was alerted to the potential benefit of allowing the man to talk himself out, perhaps betraying a kernel of truth in the process.

“As who says?” Tim asked, his tone cool--calm, even. “Because I seem to recall dispatching a few bullets into some empty heads. Hard to shoot your mouth off after that.” He, Raylan, and the entire marshal’s office were well aware that a third or more conspirators were involved in the attempted murder. Boyd shouldn’t have been.

Boyd smiled. 

“Get the fuck outta here, Boyd,” Raylan said through gritted teeth. He pushed the table back and gave himself an opening. Through Boyd’s remarks and Tim’s responses, he’d heard and seen enough. “I ain’t joking. You say one more goddamn thing that ain’t the names of any and all those associated with the fucks who tried to kill us, you’re gonna be hurtin’, and I ain’t gonna be sorry.” 

“Of course,” Boyd said, suddenly the picture of innocence. “My apologies for having disturbed your evening, gentlemen. See you around, Raylan.”

Tim watched Raylan watch Boyd leave. He finished off his beer--now warm--and threw some money on the table to cover both his and Raylan’s drinks. “I’m done,” he said, rising from his seat and collecting his jacket. 

“What? Hey, come on--”

“Nope.”

With a parting glance towards the bar, Tim exited the building through the back door. The cold, wet October air helped to sober him some, and stir awake his senses. He felt sick, but knew it had little to do with the alcohol and greasy bar food he’d consumed. 

Tim thought about rounding the building, maybe catching Crowder in the parking lot and knocking him on his ass. His other option was to buckle over and vomit, so that at least if he was caught behind the bar, he wasn’t only hiding. But Tim recalled the junior bartender and, having had his own share of menial jobs before enlisting, he knew who would be tasked to clean his mess. 

When Raylan came after him, he found Tim leaning against the wall opposite the dumpster and recycling bins. 

“Fuckin’ freezing,” Raylan observed, noting that Tim hadn’t put on his coat, only kept it pinched between one fist.

“You think he knows something?” Tim asked, but did not allot Raylan the time to answer. “So you make threats and shove him around, and out the door he goes. Christ, Raylan. Bring him in if you can spare your fucking ego for one goddamn second and consider that he isn’t just playing with you. He’s a fucking criminal, dealing Oxy, killing competitors.” A burst of sorry laughter ushered forth, as if Tim was unable to stomach his own naivete. “But please, by all means, keep playing fucking tag with fucking Boyd fucking Crowder. If that’s what makes you happy.” None too gracefully, Tim pushed off from the wall.

Raylan stuck an arm out as if he believed Tim unsteady enough to actually take a fall. “He’s just talking shit. He doesn’t know--”

“What if he did?” Tim pressed. His eyes shone like polished granite until his ducked his head and turned, momentarily disappearing again into the shadows hugging the building. “Hell, _I_ don’t know! I don’t know what this is. I don’t know who does this. I’m from the South too, okay, and this shit doesn’t fly.” 

Raylan was quiet. There was nothing, really, he could say. There was something of a slight leveled at his hometown, but Raylan would be the absolute last person to defend Harlan’s name. 

“I just want to forget this whole fucking thing,” Tim sounded focused and sure in the way that drunks often did, and it pained Raylan--who lived above a bar and knew the language--to liken the tone to the patented sorry, impossible, drunken pronouncement. Tim wouldn’t forget _this whole fucking thing_ any more than scores of Lindsey’s regulars would stop drinking and call on their old ladies to take them back, or the two girls from earlier would break up with their asshole boyfriends. 

“But I can’t,” Tim slurred, breaking from the average drunk’s familiar script of alternating denial and certainty. “Because every goddamn day I’ve got you staring at me with some hangdog look. And, and now--” Tim’s laughter was just short of hysterical. “Boyd Crowder knows? Who else? What fucking newsletter of yours hits Harlan fence posts detailing our little misadventure? Is this just another fucking Thursday for friends of Raylan Givens?”

A flash of hurt crossed Raylan’s face. He swore and seemed to drive it off. “I’m sorry, Tim. I know. I know I fucked up. But it wasn’t Boyd who--” Raylan stopped. He didn’t need to remind Tim of precisely what they were talking about. “I know that because he was the first name I looked into. He’s got a long string of shitty hires and I thought... maybe it was a scare job gone wrong. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t Boyd--I can tell you that without any reservation.”

Tim closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath and expelled it slowly, in and out through his nose. “You didn’t fuck up, okay? You didn’t. And this still happened.” Tim laughed weakly and shook his head, then turned his back to Raylan and rested for a moment, his large hand at the door. “Thanks for the socks.”

“Let me drive you home,” Raylan said, low, like he wasn’t really asking. 

“I’ll wait the twenty minutes, thanks. Get my own fucking ride.” Tim disappeared into the bar again. Raylan supposed that, had he waited, he’d have seen Tim and the bartender exit, the latter still grinning over Tim’s sorry pick-up line. _“You wanna go home with me? You’re driving.”_

Raylan didn’t wait up. Rather, he went after Boyd. 

It didn’t take a genius to know Boyd had eyes on Raylan and got tipped off to his location. As it always was with Boyd, the mystery remained: he’d stirred Raylan up, but what did he _want_?

Raylan didn’t get but two miles away from the bar before seeing Boyd’s truck parked in a fireline, Boyd leaning easily against its paint-chipped side. Raylan pulled up behind him and stalked out of the car.

“Illegal parking,” Raylan said, stopping a few feet in front of Boyd. He’d gotten Raylan’s attention, but Raylan would be damned if he got an audience, too. 

Boyd pushed off his his car and walked the few paces to meet Raylan. He cocked his head and grinned up at his childhood friend. “So arrest me.”

“What you said to Tim,” Raylan began. His tone was hard enough to convey to Boyd that it was in his interests to keep his excuses to himself, and in turn keep all his teeth. “Where did you hear that?” 

Boyd held up his hands as if he was somehow helpless in all this. It was a greater lie than any that had slithered out of his mouth, Raylan knew. “I’ve got some new regulars at my bar. They’re pretty quiet. Killing time waiting for phone calls, mostly.” 

A blue truck passed their meager convoy of two. 

“And when they ain’t so quiet?”

Boyd smirked. “There was made mention of a hat.”

\- 

Tim didn’t show up for work Friday. That evening, Raylan slunk into Art’s office and, with no preamble, asked if Tim had requested a transfer.

“He mentioned it,” Art answered, not looking up from the file he was reviewing. “A week ago. There’s no formal request, yet.” 

Raylan nodded slowly. _A week ago,_ he reiterated to himself. _Nothing happened a week ago._ It was after the meeting with AUSA, sure, but Tim seemed fine after that--if not for the meeting’s content, but because it was over. A week ago, Raylan had trouble placing Tim as anywhere but at his desk, making his way through backlogged paperwork.

He supposed it was a good thing, at least, that Tim’s mention of a possible transfer wasn’t an idea he seemed eager to act upon. 

Raylan hesitated a moment, nothing but a lean figure obstructing Art’s view of the bullpen. “He told me I could talk to you about what happened.”

Art closed the file, hoping--mistakenly--that he wasn’t being presumptuous. “You want to talk about it?”

“Hell, no. I just wanted...” Raylan sighed and collapsed into one of the chairs facing Art’s desk. Still hatless, he raked his fingers through his hair. “Is Tim okay?”

“Raylan,” Art said tiredly, wishing he could just point the marshal to the door and begin his weekend without concerning himself with the kind of shit he felt buried his office and his alone. Art knew better, of course. “I think he will be. Just give him some time, and some distance.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing?” Raylan returned accusingly. “Because he was flying blind in that AUSA investigation. You didn’t even prep him, Art.”

“I shouldn’t have to! I make that exception for _you_ , Raylan, because you can’t seem to grasp the merit in not being a dick to the higher-ups.” Art shook his head in disbelief. “Anyway, Tim did all right.” 

Raylan remembered that Tim hadn’t said one word in the car after they left the meeting--and the building--under the guise of getting lunch for the office, and he shared as much with Art. “So, in sum, he was not fuckin’ _all right._ ” 

“Hey!” Art shot up from his chair and stared hard and red-faced at his employee, feeling offended, which wasn’t something he allowed himself to indulge in during his dealings with Raylan. “I’m doing what he asked me to do,” Art said, and again, like the matter bared repeating, “I’m keeping out of his business and it ain’t easy, Raylan, but it’s what he asked of me.” 

Art rounded his desk and shut the door to his office, then fetched his top-shelf bourbon for the return trip. It wasn’t lost on the Chief that, in the month since the incident that landed two of his marshals in the hospital and one before AUSA investigators, he wasn’t so aware of the state of his employees. Tim was evasive and cool towards him, and at worst he’d physically strain himself to avoid Art’s company. Raylan--perhaps in deference to Tim--had adopted a similar approach.

Art didn’t like it, but he liked to think he understood it. Now, he wasn’t so sure. It wasn’t impatience weighing heavy on him, but something more akin to a guilty conscious. 

Art knew--belatedly or subconsciously or both--that both himself and Raylan had deferred to Tim’s instruction not because it was sound and reasonable, but because Tim appeared to be both those things. He’d fleeced them. 

Silently, Art poured a drink for himself--downed it--then poured another and one for Raylan. 

Art sipped at his second, gathering and considering his words. 

“It won’t sound the part,” Art began, “but I am about to drop some wisdom, as the kids say. Tim is not you, Raylan. Thank Christ, because I could not handle another one.” 

Raylan, who’d only stared at his share of the bourbon since Art had produced it, upended it. He hardly felt the burn.

“Tim’s a tough little shit. He doesn’t take his work personally, you get me?”

After a slow drive home, a few drinks more and a blowjob from Lindsey, Raylan sat on the end of his bed, piecing the past few weeks’ events together and thinking that, possibly, he did understand. 

\- 

A firm hand was at Tim’s elbow, and a gentle voice in his ear. 

_“What?”_ It came out angry, almost accusingly. 

“I said, you don’t look so good.”

Tim collapsed on the couch and folded in on himself, drawing his knees in and curling his arms against his gut. In his hands, he held his spinning, aching head. His hair was wet, but not clean-smelling. He belatedly realized that he was slick all over, arms and chest cold and drenched in sweat. Even his boxer shorts felt heavy and damp. 

Lifting his head from his hands and blinking confusedly, Tim saw that he was sat on a towel.

“Fuck,” he whispered, devastated. His swimming head was drowning. 

The gentle voice returned with uneasy grip on his shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

Soundlessly, Tim started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (2) Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. Appendix I. p 302


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim lies, sucks cock, and makes a gamble. Raylan accomplishes only two of the three and clearly needs to apply himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This 800+ hits business is blowing my mind. Thanks so much readers, reviewers, and bookmarkers! You guys are amazing. 
> 
> This is an extra-long chapter because with finals and some school-heavy months coming up, I might not be able to update this story until June. 
> 
> OC dominates this chapter some, the little shit. That's likely to change in later chapters.

“You didn’t have to stay,” Tim said, swirling his spoon into the pastel colored milk left in his cereal bowl. He was freshly showered after two entire days of hardly moving from his bed, and more than a little curious about his apparent house guest. The roving bartender from the bar--Jeff, he introduced himself to Tim in a joking manner that suggested he’d had to do it before--hadn’t just driven Tim home, he’d stayed through the man’s impressive hangover, grinding mental breakdown, and silent treatment. 

Jeff shrugged, dropping his own spoon into his bowl. “For the night? Sure I did. Thought you were going to keel over. For the weekend? Well... it was a first.” Jeff took his and Tim’s bowls and rinsed them in the sink, then moved to wash, dry, and stow them with a practiced hand. All the while, Tim watched his movements cautiously. “Mostly you just slept, anyway.”

Sat precariously on a bar stool lined along the stretch of kitchen counter space, Tim leaned back and presented his most lecherous grin. “I’m well-rested now, if you wanna...”

Jeff smiled kindly, not taking the bait. “Maybe some other time. I’m kinda sick of you.” 

The grin disappeared and found in its stead something approaching baseline for Tim--flat, indifferent to either humor or malice. “That’s understandable.” 

Jeff was surprised by the ache he suddenly felt in his heart. He’d seen this strange man through two days and three nights of an awful and undoubtedly very private and highly volatile mental place. Tim had said plenty of heartbreaking things--usually in a troubled half-sleep--but suddenly sober and clear-headed, the easy dismissal hurt all the more. 

Tim rubbed at the two days worth of growth along his jaw and throat. “We didn’t fuck at all, did we?” 

“Uh-- _no._ ”

Tim spun partway around on the barstool and adopted a matter-of-fact tone. “Well I hope I at least offered, made a good host of myself.”

Jeff smiled like he intended to laugh, but didn’t. “You need a ride anywhere? I noticed you didn’t park at the bar.”

Tim shook his head. “Rode with a friend.” Although appropriately embarrassed, Tim was practical to a fault and ultimately took the man up on his offer. “Would you mind taking me downtown? Left my car at work.”

Nodding in agreement even before Tim issued his request, Jeff confirmed: “Marshal’s office, right? Sure thing.”

Tim plucked an apple from a ceramic bowl--a house-warming gift from Rachel--on the counter. He hadn’t eaten since sharing beer and fries with Raylan at the bar on Thursday, and his bowl of cereal only seemed to awaken his appetite, not satiate it. “I tell you that, or did you rifle through my mail?”

“That badge isn’t something you see too often,” Jeff said by way of explanation. Then, “Your TV Guide and latest edition of _Guns & Ammo_ came in, by the way.” 

To hide a smirk, Tim took a large bite of his apple and chewed noisily. 

“Someone kept calling your phone,” Jeff said, taking the opportunity to speak while Tim seemed otherwise engaged. “I answered it--I’m sorry--but they seemed really concerned.”

Tim swallowed and tongued a dribble of juice from the corner of his mouth. “Art?” 

Jeff nodded, remembering the names that lit up Tim’s phone all weekend. “Art, Rachel, and... The Lone Ranger?”

“Bar friend,” Tim clarified, taking another bite and speaking awkwardly through it, “If you knew his hat, I swear it would all make sense.”

“Well, I talked to Art, briefly. Said I was a friend and you were sleeping off some stomach bug.” Jeff made a face like he was sorry for his weak story. “I don’t think he believed a word of it, but...”

Tim quirked his eyebrows and pretended to inspect a bruise on his apple. Then, curiously, he asked: “Why’d you lie for me?”

Jeff hadn’t stopped moving since Tim had come-to hours earlier, essentially driving himself out of his funk with willpower and the aid of a long, ice-cold shower. When he wasn’t crowding Tim, Jeff was on the other side of a closed door, knocking lightly and asking after Tim’s wellbeing. As he was stalled, now, plagued with only inadequate answers for Tim’s question, the marshal finally had an opportunity to assess the man. 

Tim placed them around the same age--or maybe Jeff was older. His clothes--jeans and a plain gray t-shirt--didn’t help to place him beyond the image Tim already had. The faint sweat stains under the arms were suggestive of Jeff sharing in as questionable a weekend as Tim had--or rather, Tim reasoned, simply sharing in _his_ questionable weekend. He was too tall and broad-shouldered for an offer of a clean shirt to be met with anything other than laughter or a polite refusal. The red-and-black plaid button-down belonging to the soldier from the VFW Club came to mind, but Tim supposed if Jeff was even half as perceptive as Raylan, he’d recognize the one size-appropriate item in Tim’s wardrobe for what it really was. Something about the exchange struck Tim as tacky. 

“Listen,” Jeff began, and either Tim made him nervous, or his habit of cracking his knuckles one at a time was only that--a habit. “I don’t know your situation, and the voicemails Art left made it pretty clear he’s your boss. I thought you deserved an opportunity to get out ahead of this, if you needed to.” 

Quietly, Tim shortened his appraisal of the man: he was a good guy. 

Jeff gave a crooked smile. “Besides, I know how that bar food is cooked. Walking away with a stomach bug is a given, really.”

Tim did feel sick, but it wasn’t the fault of any bar food. Thursday was the first time in weeks he hadn’t taken any sleeping pills to ease his troubled nights, and all the alcohol he’d consumed only exasperated the change and stressed his body. He’d awakened at 4am Friday morning from a nightmare, tears streaming down his face and disappearing into his mouth, burning down his throat as he sucked in gasps of air. While the saturated images of his felled friends and targets alike refused to fade, he hyperventilated. 

The images hung around, too, long after he was led away from his bedroom and began to stumble around his apartment. They dug in at the corners of his eyes, putting him on edge as he could never quite spot them. Tim hesitated to call them hallucinations. 

Hallucinations, he’d always found, were never this bad.

“Well all right,” Tim said, punctuating with another bite of apple his satisfaction with the answer.

And Jeff seemed satisfied with something, too--enough so that he deemed Tim fit to occupy a short time alone. “Do you mind if I shower?”

By the time Tim heard the water running, he’d finished his apple and disposed of the chewed-up core. 

Tim pulled a second apple from the bowl on the counter, only to toss it distractedly between his hands. The sugary breakfast cereal sat like lead in his stomach, and with every deep breath he took, the shredded apple threatened to come up. He walked with the second apple to his bedroom, where he changed out of his sweats.

Tim also took stock of himself, noting with a dull disappointment the range of small cuts and litany of bruises he did not recall acquiring. Most spotted his legs, like he’d been kicking in a confined space. There was a familiar pattern of crescent-shaped cuts carved into the palms of his hands. Tim wasn’t so confused about those; sometimes he fisted his hands in his sleep. The first time it happened was late into his first month back in civilization, far and long enough away from Afghanistan that he was feeling settled, _feeling good,_ even, about how little of the war seemed to have followed him home. It was complacency, he’d later come to realize. And it didn’t last. 

Specifically, it didn’t last past his first night at Glynco. 

When he awoke that first time, blood covering his hands, sheets, and face, he’d nearly dissolved into tears in the dormitory-style bathrooms when the blood only seemed to spread over his hands, heavier and warmer. It wasn’t until realizing precisely where he was bleeding _from_ , and that his vigorous hand-washing only served to aggravate the cuts that Tim had sunk to the bathroom floor and shook with laughter, at once humiliated and relieved. It had been a long two minutes. 

For some nights after that, he secretly slept with an empty paper towel roll, clutching it like a rifle. Subsequent nights, he didn’t always sleep. 

When Glynco training and examinations began to speed up and intensify, Tim found he simply didn’t have the time for hysterics. Keeping busy, keeping focused, and by the end of the sixteen-week course, the scarring on his hands had healed to a painless lily-white color. 

Clear-headed for the first time in days, Tim admittedly did not use his time wisely. He padded around his apartment, re-examining it and feeling as though he hadn’t even occupied the space for three days--never mind the fact that he hadn’t even left. 

In his bedroom, Tim noticed his sheets didn’t match; he’d bought an extra set of linens from a discount bin because they’d been wrongly packaged--white and pink striped pillow case and blue checkered sheets. The better set was recently washed and folded neatly on the bedroom dresser. As if Tim was constructing a conspiracy, he also remembered smelling disinfectant in the bathroom earlier that morning, and noted that his laundry basket had been moved to the far corner of the living room, loaded with towels and reeking of a variety of human fluids. 

Tim could hear the shower running. He was careful to stay quiet and not alert Jeff of his presence. He sat on the corner of his bed, pulled on a pair of socks--not minding the holes--and strapped his aching ankle into its boot. His mind was drawn to his evening with Raylan--everything he’d not meant to say, but practically spelled out for the man. He liked to think Raylan was a little at fault for that, too. 

Remembering Boyd and his insinuations had Tim pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars. It was more than having the thoughts that chewed at the edges of his mind thrown back in his face, reaffirmed by an outsider that stuck with Tim--it was what Boyd _wasn’t_ saying that angered him. A trip to Lexington to make Tim feel like shit to his face was purposeless; Tim could count on one hand the number of times he’d crossed paths with Crowder, none of them especially memorable. If Boyd had simply wanted to talk to Raylan, he only needed to wait until the marshal had reason to venture down to Harlan. There was something--Tim was sure--in their meeting that Boyd had sought to accomplish. Boyd Crowder was an asshole, but not a flying-through-infinite-space asshole. He had trajectory, he always sought a purpose, a destination, _a result._ It was what made him such an elusive criminal and kept him on Raylan’s radar. 

He supposed Raylan had figured out as much. There was no doubt in Tim’s mind that he’d gone after Boyd; he only hoped that the meeting bore some substantive results. 

Wandering back into the kitchen, Tim returned the apple to its place and toyed with the bowl a moment. It was bright, graphic, and embossed with red roosters. It was the only piece of decoration on display in his home, and he was never quite certain if Rachel had meant it as a joke. 

From his multiple tours, he’d returned with a few items from Afghan market places and battlefields, alike. When Rachel was having trouble with her husband and unceremoniously moved in with her mother and nephew, Tim had brought her a housewarming gift, in turn. It was a lapis lazuli bowl, an item particular to Afghanistan and carved from a heavy, dark blue precious stone flecked with yellow. It was either that or the molten remains of rocket-propelled grenades. 

He reasoned the bowl was a better choice in the end; Rachel’s mother even sent him a thank-you card, which Tim kept on his desk at work to amuse Rachel. 

When Jeff took the roundabout way out of the bathroom and through Tim’s bedroom, he emerged dressed, though still toweling his wet hair. Tim moved so that their earlier positions in the kitchen were swapped; Jeff sat on the stool and Tim behind the counter, feeling that if he could occupy a greater place of control, the counter was it.

At Tim’s behest, Jeff succinctly explained the marshal’s strange behavior from Thursday evening through Saturday night. Jeff imparted as diplomatic terms as he could, but ultimately admitted he simply did not understand Tim’s condition, and conveyed as much. “You didn’t seem... entirely there,” Jeff began. “You stared at nothing. You were despondent. You cried and had nightmares. I didn’t know what to do, so... I just kept watch.”

Tim’s eyes skirted over Jeff, who’d again donned his dirty t-shirt and jeans after showering. Tim felt a pang of guilt having not offered the plaid button-down. 

“But you didn’t call a hospital. You didn’t think I was going to _harm myself,_ ” Tim surmised, staring past Jeff and across the room because it was too humiliating to hear what he’d made of himself, and to see his own concerned audience struggle putting it into words. He emphasized the last two words like a joke, but again--Jeff didn’t laugh. 

Rather, Jeff was quiet for a time. “I didn’t, really. Plus... I looked through your medicine cabinet. Some vitamins, the only bottle of sleeping pills was empty, nothing else stronger than Advil.”

“My body is a temple,” Tim deadpanned.

Jeff’s smile was strained. Tim’s cheeks burned red as he vaguely recalled spending half of Friday night sleeping on the couch, and he wondered anxiously if he’d wet his bed. 

“The thing is,” Jeff ventured tentatively, “The thing that... I wish I had called a--a mental health professional. A therapist. But it’d only do you any good if you had one yourself and I didn’t--”

“I don’t have her business card,” Tim cut in, tacitly acknowledging that he did have a therapist. “If you were looking for one in my wallet.” He studied Jeff’s response and thought he detected a note of relief. 

“I did look,” Jeff confessed. 

“And she’s not Doctor-so-and-so in my phone. She’s just Carol.” Conversations from his evening with Raylan flashed like warning lights in his mind; he’d shared too much then, too, and hadn’t come away any better for it. He felt no great wave of relief from telling Raylan more about the incident, or about his life before the war and after. Tim supposed he’d been hoping for some lofty outcome--like feeling less trapped within himself, less alone in his decisions. 

Tim reeled himself back to the task at hand and issued a small, appreciative smile. “And, uh, thanks. I should have called.” 

If Jeff had said the words held behind the expression on his face-- _there was no way in hell you were in a condition to make that call_ \--Tim couldn’t have blamed him. He only mirrored Tim’s smile and gave an affirmative nod. Then, his confidence seemed to weaken. 

“And I, um, should probably tell you. I hid your weapon.” Jeff chewed his lip. “I can get it for you, if--”

Tim again stared through him. “Pantry, top shelf. Is it because I’m short?”

“ _How--?_ ”

“I can smell it,” Tim answered in a dangerously low tone, then grinned. “Your face,” he teased. “You keep looking over there. Either you’ve stashed something or you really want toast. Can I make you some toast, Jeff?”

“I moved the bread to hide your gun,” Jeff said, schooling his smile. “So why don’t I get both?”

\- 

Clean and casual in black jeans, a white t-shirt, blue pullover, and ever-present ankle boot, Tim left his apartment just after eleven. Jeff jogged ahead of him, intending to bring the car around closer to the building, but Tim waved him off. It felt good to walk.

They’d only just sat down in the well-worn seats of Jeff’s truck when Tim turned and issued a long apology in which he noted Jeff’s generosity and his own regret for--in Tim’s words--taking advantage of his kindness. He concluded, “It wasn’t appropriate and I apologize for putting you in that position.” Despite its formality and the listless monotone of Tim’s delivery, Jeff recognized the apology to be sincere. 

“You get like that often, Tim?”

While Tim never felt compelled to explain his mental state to his co-workers and others just to satisfy their curiosity, he was nonetheless inclined to answer to Jeff, whose interest was not unfounded. “No,” Tim answered honestly. “I haven’t done that in a good, long while.” 

Tim lifted his elbow to rest along the open side window, curled his hand into a fist and leaned against it. Then, quiet enough that Jeff might have missed it, Tim murmured, “It’s been a shitty month.” 

Jeff smiled as he pulled out of the apartment complex and onto the main road. “It’s November first.”

Brow furrowed in mock-disappointment, Tim rolled his head to face Jeff. “Oh shit, I missed Halloween?” 

Without prompting, Tim found himself wetting his lips, eager to speak. An idea gnawed at him and he was quickly won over by its simplicity. “First week in October,” he began, making sure to have acquired the man’s attention, “The Lone Ranger and I were on a job, tracking down a fugitive holing up at his cousin’s place. We got jumped, our suspects were shot to shit by... whoever the hell these other guys were. So...” Tim spun his own hand, as if gesturing to himself to speed up the story. “Kidnapped, driven up a mountain, and nearly blown to bits. Some other shit, too, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“Fuck,” Jeff breathed. 

“Yeah, a bit of that.” 

Jeff turned to address the comment, confused, but was put off by Tim’s tight frown and laser-focused stare at some distant point outside the passenger window. Jeff let the thing rest.

Tim sat silently, waiting. When it became clear to him that Jeff hadn’t heard the tale and thought, _what else?_ he found himself entertaining tremendous relief. The feeling bloomed in his gut and made him feel suddenly blissful to the point of light-headedness. 

“I killed them both,” Tim continued quietly. Not ashamedly or sorrowfully, but quiet, low, and honestly. “The kidnappers. Shot one between the eyes. Knocked the other out... he died later. Complications, they said. Only thing complicating his health was the dent I put in his thick skull.”

“You’re not shitting me,” Jeff realized as a word of sympathy died on his lips. “You really... wow.”

“I have badge,” Tim clarified. Needlessly, in fact, as the item was set in its usual place on his belt. Tim raked a hand through his hair to calm what the open window had thrown into disarray. “So it was all legal.”

“That would have been my next question,” Jeff joked uncomfortably. 

“You got family in the military?” Tim asked as they stopped at a red light. He chose not to question why he chose _military_ over _law enforcement_ , supposing that neither neatly covered the matter, anyway. “Or are you just naturally this patient hearing murderous confessions?” 

“No military,” Jeff answered. “Patience... well. Mental illness was...” He waved a hand and finished succinctly, “My mom. Anyway.”

“That’ll do it,” Tim mused. 

Jeff frowned. “I don’t mean to say--” _That you’re unhinged because you were contracted to kill people,_ he nearly added, but Tim silenced him with an easy, crooked little smile.

“You said it just fine,” he assured. Jeff was sorry the man wasn’t more talkative--not that he had an ear for the particulars of the deaths of two men, but the marshal’s voice was low, like he was perpetually awaking from a deep sleep. It was deceptively calming. “Sorry about your mom.”

Jeff blinked, surprised. “Sorry about your shitty month.”

They didn’t speak again until Tim sat up a little straighter in his seat, eyeing a building coming into view behind a neat line of trees. Jeff recognized it loosely as the courthouse; he’d only ever visited the place as a child on a school fieldtrip. “Here?”

“Yeah.”

When they parked, Tim stepped out of the car and Jeff followed suit. If there was a protocol to follow in these types of meetings, neither man was aware of it. They simply thought to take in the sunshine for a moment. 

Jeff turned to face Tim, who was leaning against his truck and peacefully enjoying in the cool, brisk air and bright, warm sun. When he wasn’t vomiting, crying, or lost to some hard, far-away stare, Tim was handsome. He was fit and lean, his entire body seemingly inspired by use rather than presentation. Nothing was left to waste, given his shape. His light coloring made him seem young and boyish, and his lips--constantly met by his tongue--were shiny and pink. 

Nice packaging aside, Jeff had to admit he was wary of the contents. Leaning coolly against his aged truck was the same lithe frame he’d seen drenched in sweat, convulsing violently in a nightmare-plagued sleep. Not without trepidation, Jeff nevertheless made his pitch: “Seeing as I know where you live and what kind of cereal you buy, would you mind if I stop by sometime?” 

When Tim didn’t immediately balk at the idea, Jeff continued to press his luck, saying, “Maybe stay the night when you’re feeling better?” 

“Shit,” Tim grinned, staring down at his hands. They were pressed flat against his thighs. “I don’t remember much of the last two days, but I think you may have mopped up my piss at some point.” Tim’s grimace-turned-grin prefaced his half-question of, “Where are your standards, man?”

It wasn’t lost on Tim that even the friendliest of bartenders only do so much to see that their clientele doesn’t die, belly-up, sucking at air bubbles in their own vomit. Proving Tim’s point, Jeff moved to limit the space between them. Their sides touched and Tim’s right hand--large, and especially so when resting on his slim, muscular thigh--brushed against the denim of Jeff’s jeans. 

“For men in Kentucky?” Jeff hummed, figuring he’d match Tim joke-for-joke. “Pretty low.”

“Cereal,” Tim intoned, wearing a thin-lipped expression that didn’t lend itself much to joking. “That’s as good a reason as any to fuck a guy.”

Jeff found himself awkwardly making a case for his line while simultaneously wishing he hadn’t said a fucking word. “You seemed like a nice guy at the bar, before all this. I mean, you had your friend cracking up and--”

“Yeah, but bright colors and shapes get him going, so,” Almost aggressively, Tim’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and he didn’t finish his sentence. Besides a barely visible pink scar, his split lip was fully healed. 

“Maybe not, then,” Jeff conceded, figuring that even if Tim shared his interest, his pride was too bruised. _He’s not wrong about pissing his bed, after all._

Tim turned his head as if Jeff had spoken the thought aloud. Then, he pushed off the car to stand before Jeff, rather than beside him, and stared. He took in a long breath and exhaled it in a small cloud. “You probably work nights, huh? How’s Saturday afternoon? Burgers at mine.” 

Tim looked about as surprised as Jeff; he hadn’t intended to make a specific proposal--let alone one that didn’t come out mangled as half-disinterest, half-desperation. In the shadow of the marshal offices, Tim was once again confident and sure. Whether the profession, star, and gun lent him the confidence, or if it stemmed from simply being apart from his vomit-and sweat-smelling pillow and lumpy couch, Tim wasn’t one to question what scored him a date. 

“Uh, yeah,” Jeff agreed. “I’d like that.” 

Tim nodded once and with one smooth step, returned to stand against the car.

“For the record,” Tim murmured, sliding up closer to Jeff and inclining his head so that Jeff had to sink down somewhat to hear him, “I’m embarrassed as hell.” _But you’re goddamn gorgeous_ , Tim thought, saying instead, “But I ain’t stupid, even when I get like I do.” 

Jeff grinned, pulling back. He took in the sight of Tim looking up at him, squinting against the sun. It wasn’t a particularly smooth presentation--there were dark bags under his eyes and his lips had disappeared into a thin line--but then again, perhaps drunken pick-up lines and night terrors were the respective high and low points of Tim’s personality spectrum. Maybe cautious date-making was the man’s happy medium. 

“You’re trouble,” Jeff said.

“No more than any other man you’ve seen piss his own bed.” Tim watched him after that, trying to gauge Jeff’s response. Jeff shook his head of curly dark hair and grinned as if he was the one embarrassed. And immediately, Tim knew he liked that. His therapist’s voice invaded his head and filled it with encouraging psychobabble: A sense of humor about these things was what he wanted--an understanding that his were human problems, and he wasn’t unique in having them. 

With small skeptical--but optimistic--smiles, their first, extended meeting finally came to a close.

Jeff poked his head out of the open window of his aged blue Chevy as he pulled away from the building. “See ya Saturday, Tim.”

Tim waved once and then retreated into the federal building, flashing his ID badge and, for the sake of his ankle, made his way towards the elevator rather than the stairs. 

\- 

“I thought you were a church-going man,” Tim said as Art rounded a corner and appeared to be returning to his office. Art looked surprised to see Tim--or surprised to see anyone in the marshal offices on a beautiful Sunday morning. 

“Wife’s out of town,” Art said, walking with Tim until they reached his desk. “If I don’t have to put on a monkey suit at eight in the morning, I won’t.” 

Tim shed his jacket and eased into his seat. “Jesus is probably crying on his futon right about now.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s a 30-something living with his dad, right? Isn’t that how it goes?” In his rare crossings with Art--by Tim’s count, they hadn’t shared a conversation longer than two minutes since that ugly October evening--saying nothing at all _with a smile_ , Tim figured, was better than saying nothing at all. 

“Heathen,” Art accused jokingly. Tim grinned--but only briefly, as Art lowered himself into the chair by Tim’s desk usually reserved for interviewees or, more recently, excess files from his “to do” pile. The offices were otherwise unoccupied, and Tim dreaded what suddenly had all the trappings of a heart-to-heart. 

“Heard you had a shitty weekend,” Art said, crossing his leg ankle-to-knee and appearing settled-in. 

“It’s looking up,” Tim said shortly, turning on his computer and needlessly lifting some stored files from the top drawer of his desk. “Thought I’d get through a little paperwork, seeing as I’m already here.”

Art leaned in and plucked a stress ball out of the drawer. Tim tried not to frown at it. “Your weekend friend drop you off?”

“I was going to call him Jeff,” Tim said dryly, donning his familiarly inscrutable face, “But do you think he’d prefer Weekend Friend?”

Art’s frown--Tim might have called it _generous_ , but thought the word carried an inappropriately joyful connotation--set into his face like stone. “Go on home, Tim.”

Tim shook his head. “I had some shit I put off ‘til Friday, then I fucked that up, so,” he spread his arms like a benevolent king over his tower of paperwork. 

“Ah, yes, how did you occupy your three-day weekend?”

Tim did not mistake Art’s light tone for casual conversation; the Chief expected an explanation. “I got drunk with Raylan, had my little shit show, then I slept,” Tim answered as honestly as he could manage. “Now I want to work.”

Art quirked an eyebrow. “Your shit show anything I need to be concerned about? You spend it crying on a futon?”

“I’m no martyr,” Tim rebuffed. “And give me a little credit, huh? I’ve got springs in my bed. There are _at least_ four.”

“Glad you could climb down from the lap of luxury to do paperwork, then,” Art said. His tone was rough but Tim could tell he was amused. 

“It was trying,” Tim agreed with a sigh, taking a split second to marvel at what an accomplished liar he’d become.

“Don’t stay too late,” Art said firmly. He left the chair and then, having considered Tim for a moment, he added, “You’re looking better.”

Tim issued a thumbs-up, managing to look only half-sarcastic. 

It was the most the two had spoken in a long while, Tim realized after Art had disappeared into his office and settled in at his desk. Albeit saturated in sarcasm (nonetheless the medium in which the two men communicated best), the words were all there but the presentation was still uneasy. It was as though they’d both prepared lines for the same play, separately. 

When Art had driven Tim home from the hospital, the trip was mostly spent in bristly silence. Tim had said some things in the hospital he wasn’t proud of, and Art supposed--after the fact--that he’d misdirected his anger at what happened to Tim, _at_ Tim. 

“I don’t think I did anything wrong,” Tim had said after they’d approached the fourth of a long string of red lights. 

Art had very nearly driven through it. “You-- _of course not, Tim._ This wasn’t--”

“I mean in the shooting.” Tim had clarified, eyes wide and face slackened with humiliation. He’d masked his face with his hands after that, then moved them to cover his mouth and stifle a burst of horrified laughter. _“Oh my god.”_

When they’d reached Tim’s apartment door after another excruciating bout of silence, Art was still undeterred. “We should talk about this.”

The rest of the conversation had been brief--Tim was stood in his doorway in front of Art, who had looked equally likely to shoulder his way in or make a run for it--but regrettable. Thinking back on it, Tim would have taken back every word. 

_“We have. I’ve talked about nothing else. Ask Raylan if you want the gory details, apparently he’s jumping at the bit to tell anyone.”_

_“Rachel isn’t just anyone.”_

_“I wasn’t going to tell you, either.”_

Tim regretted his behavior, now, figuring he could have at least issued a placating _thanks_ or a noncommittal _of course, yes, when I’m ready,_ if only to better manage his prospects of keeping his coworkers and boss a respectful distance from the topic. It was only with hindsight that Tim recognized another mistake: if he’d traded his patented _nothing’s wrong_ for an equally untrue _I’m okay,_ he might have spared himself some of Raylan’s interest or the icily met conversations with Art. 

_Honey, flies,_ Tim thought to himself dismissively. There were a lot of things he couldn’t change--conversations least among them. He delved into his work. 

After several hours, when Tim found himself without a file or name to pursue, he made a mental picture of his apartment and how he’d clean it before Jeff next visited. He thought about how it didn’t have to be a shithole, and it wasn’t, really, underneath the stale smell and the emptiness. 

\- 

Boyd Crowder was a lot of things-- _opportunistic_ topped the PG-13 version of Raylan’s list. _Girlfriend-stealing shitstain_ was a close second, if only for the vulgarity.

In an otherwise empty Dairy Queen, Boyd told Raylan about the murmurings he was picking up about a new crowd moving in on the Harlan drug trade. _Heroin,_ he specified, sending Raylan’s mind straight to the Dixie Mafia and the likes of Wynn Duffy. 

Boyd disagreed. “Duffy ain’t news to me,” he’d said, annoyed that Raylan would think so little of him as to be unaware of such goings on. 

Raylan disagreed with Boyd’s disagreement. “You thinking Detroit? They don’t know Harlan, they’re not going to send their own boys down into a verifiable minefield.”

“Did I _say_ these fellas were from Detroit?” 

Raylan didn’t buy it; it was too messy and convoluted a conclusion for Boyd to draw after observing some strangers for just a couple of nights. If Harlan was in Detroit’s crosshairs, they wouldn’t waste time and money hiring out. 

“This is criminal _en-ter-pri-sing,_ ” Raylan said, gesturing with a cold and limp french fry. “Nobody’s got time for trial and error.”

Boyd produced that million-watt smile. “I got all the time in the world, Raylan.”

Raylan met him with a hard stare. He dried his mouth with a napkin as if he was wiping himself clean of the conversation. In so hard a tone that Boyd would have had to be deaf to misunderstand its meaning, Raylan warned, “And you’ll be in error if you speak out of turn to a U.S. Marshal again, Boyd. Serious, _bone-shattering_ error.” 

What Raylan did not count on was Boyd willfully misunderstanding him. “I thought our history afforded me a kind of _familiarity_ and freedom in our discussions, whether they be--”

Raylan cut him off: _“You know what I mean.”_

“You took notice though, didn’t you?” Boyd’s beetle-black eyes shone with a kind of displaced triumph. He spared hardly a thought of what he’d said to Tim at the bar; saying it, after all, was solely for Raylan’s benefit. “You knew that I knew something worth knowing.”

“No, Boyd. Surprisingly enough, I ain’t attuned to your specific wavelength of insanity every goddamn second of my day.” Raylan sucked his teeth and sat back in the grimy plastic booth seat. “You seem to be confused. I’ll play along for a moment, allow you to believe a kind of camaraderie still exists between you and me. That wasn’t your time, Boyd. That was something else and it was important.”

Raylan left the impromptu meeting knowing two things: first, the specifics of Boyd’s opportunistic endeavors still remained a mystery to him; and second, Dairy Queen had really let itself go. Those were not the french fries of his youth. 

Convinced of a Dixie Mafia link, but equally aware that he couldn’t go to Duffy without something to bait him with, Raylan decided to take his mind off important matters with something less trifling: his actual job. 

After the shit-shows that were Kyle Clemens and Herb Weston, Raylan dug his hand into the endless pit of fugitives making their way through Kentucky, and chose a little present for himself: a bizarre case of a man, born and raised in Kentucky, who’d fled his Malibu estate. A return to Kentucky wasn’t expected of him; he had the kind of money and means that bespoke of a retreat to his yacht in the Bahamas or his timeshare in Aspen. Raylan briefly wondered who had scored those investigations, and remembered a time when--in Miami--the private beaches used to be his hunting grounds, too. 

Through some grunt work and many long hours flitting through surveillance camera footage along Kentucky interstates, however, Raylan caught a glimpse of his man stopping at a handful of convenience stores, searching for a particular brand of bottled water.

Glancing at the long, winding road of his prospective road trip, Raylan thought about--for better or worse--asking Tim along again. Although it had been over two weeks since the ill-fated search for the bail-jumper, Raylan imagined the marshal would turn him down, anyway. Raylan mused optimistically that extending the offer would sort of settle his debt and convey to Tim that he’d been right to make the call he did when they drove past Herb Weston’s car crash. 

Tim had higher prospects, however. Raylan watched and listened through their desk partition as Tim received a call from one of the tactical divisions--SOG, if Raylan heard correctly--and was cordially invited to play sharpshooter for the day. 

Tim answered in the affirmative, but asked why they didn’t call his boss--the man who would have the final say-so to loan him out.

Raylan didn’t hear the response--a perfunct _“We did,”_ from the man on the other line. If he was speaking for his department, then everyone was tired of getting the runaround. _“Chief Mullen said to ask_ you.” 

“Well look at me, moving up in the world,” Tim marvelled dully, picking up a pen. “Where is it I’m going?” 

Tim jotted down the information, ended the call, and disappeared into the locker rooms. Raylan watched him return not three minutes later, toting his rifle bag over one shoulder and a kevlar vest under his arm. Head held high, he looked eager to be going off to war. 

So Tim was out, and Rachel made it very clear she didn’t have the time to entertain Raylan’s _Harlan whisperer_ routine. “I’m going to _Barbourville,_ ” Raylan corrected, but Rachel just shook her head. It was close enough to merit a detour.

“You talk to those people like you’re sifting through tea leaves,” she’d said by way of her refusal. “And all I see is a few teacups short of a set.” 

His business down in Barbourville was cut short with word of his fugitive being up in _Covington_ of all places. There, almost by mistake, Raylan caught up with the sorriest excuse for a fugitive in his twenty years on the job. Randy Paul-- _“Like that dumbass Senator?”_ \--was charged with money laundering and--more recently--interstate flight. Raylan found him enjoying an ice cream cone on a park bench, taking in the sights and sounds of a pleasant little neighborhood. 

After dragging the man into his car in handcuffs, Raylan listened to him sniffle and prattle on about MainStrasse Village, some type of historical restoration event taking place in Covington. Randy had visited every year since he was a child, and wanted to see it just one more time.

“You’re looking at three years, not life,” Raylan said, not in a mood to entertain hysterics. He blanked on the specifics of Randy’s crime that lead to the interstate flight charge, despite the fact that he had Randy’s file in the front seat of his Lincoln, even, because the man was so unremarkable Raylan found that he needed to keep a photo nearby.

But Randy Paul was the melodramatic sort, and after putting up with him whining and crying for two hours, Raylan didn’t doubt the man was right: prison would not be kind to him. That said, whatever befell Randy would be at his own snot-streaked hand.

And because Raylan needed the time and couldn’t muster the patience, he cut Randy Paul a deal: first, _he’d stop with the snivelling Jesus Christ you’re a grown man,_ and second, on the condition that over the next three days, they’d meet every morning and evening in a city of Raylan’s choosing--Williamstown, Georgetown, Richmond or Berea--Randy could stay in Covington and visit the historic MainStrasse Village. On the fourth day (Raylan wasn’t stupid--he planned to arrive early and have Randy by the third), Randy would get into Raylan’s car and keep quiet on the drive to Lexington. Then he’d go to prison, never uttering a word of his special treatment. 

“I’ve got a reputation to uphold,” Raylan joked, then made clear to Randy that this was a serious matter: “One question as to why I am willing to extend to you this great favor... and the offer’s gone. That’s it. So what’s it going to be?”

Randy dried his eyes, wiped his nose, and nodded. Raylan turned the car around. 

Raylan wasn’t especially touched by Randy’s story or appreciation for reconstructed German neighborhoods deposited in northern Kentucky... but he could use the time. Three days to venture into Harlan and follow up on Boyd Crowder’s sparse detailing of the outsiders frequenting his bar was nothing to sneeze at. In the marshal offices, the case had practically gone cold. If Raylan wanted a lead, Boyd Crowder was his Obi Wan Kanobi. 

And by the week’s end, Randy Paul would be in custody. No harm, no foul. 

Glad now that he had gone alone, Raylan placed a call to Art, checking in. Raylan figured he’d make the occasional appearance at work--check his calls, his email--so as not to garner suspicion. Letting Randy Paul loose was by no means a nail in Raylan’s career’s coffin--more of a scratch in the finishing. For as stupid a thing as he was planning to do, Raylan supposed he might as well be smart about it. 

\- 

Tim found the location specified by the SOG tactical team and parked a few blocks away. He walked as quickly as his ankle brace allowed and, flashing his badge, met with a familiar face about a block from a scene of partitioned streets and gathered SOG vehicles. 

“Kendall,” Tim greeted, remembering the man from a similar situation six months ago. He was a former university football star-turned-U.S. Marine-turned-U.S. Marshal, big, bald, and muscular. Tim heard a rumor that he did comedy improv up in Louisville in his spare time, and somehow did not doubt it. 

“Thanks for coming through for us,” Kendall said, eyeing Tim’s brace. He’d jogged over and swallowed his disappointment of having to walk back. 

Tim managed to quicken his pace at the expense of any semblance of dignity or balance. He jockeyed each step with the weight of his rifle bag, which Kendall noticed and alleviated from Tim’s shoulders, urging him instead to don his kevlar vest. “Why not send in SWAT?” Tim asked, strapping himself into the vest. 

“Vicks wants our guy alive,” Kendall said. 

Tim frowned. “So why call me?” 

Kendall smirked like Tim had made a joke; Tim hadn’t. “You could hit a shoulder just as well as you could a head, right?”

“If I really put my mind to it,” Tim supposed. They cleared a police line and Tim took back his rifle bag. He didn’t know Vicks, so he spoke lowly to Kendall in case the man was nearby and the chain of command was thrown into disarray by Tim’s comments. “You think clearing his gun momentarily is really the best option?”

“It’s _an_ option,” Kendall clarified, mirroring Tim’s low tones. The two walked toward a operations van tucked down a narrow alley, hugging the sides of buildings as they went--a tactic they’d both come to learn through experience in foreign wars. 

Although not especially enthusiastic about the plan, Tim kept his more explicit complaints to himself. “Maybe I should shoot the gun outta his hand,” he said, wiggling his long fingers near Kendall’s ear to unnerve him. “Take some fingers.”

“Hell yeah,” Kendall laughed, outfitting Tim with a sleek earpiece and barely-there headphone mic. “ _Rustlers’ Rhapsody_ this bitch.”

Tim skirted his eyes about the scene, taking in the number of specialists. Everyone was moving, heads cocked listening to their headsets, weapons not drawn exclusively but hands--all gloved--at the ready. SWAT and SOG teams, in Tim’s experience, were largely made up of ex-military personnel. For some guys, it was a good fit. Like anybody else, he’d also heard the horror stories, the gossip that permeated surrounding offices and was met with gasps of _what a tragedy, what a shock, he didn’t seem the type_. 

If Tim had been shopping for highs after returning home, too, he supposed he wouldn’t have landed a desk job. Spotting two men with their weapons drawn--ugly heaps of plastic and iron, some hulked-out bastardization of an MP5--Tim was glad to have Kendall briefing him. He only sported a glock and had once half-joked of its best feature: _“Never been used.”_

“Our guy’s in that building,” Kendall pointed to a red-brick, rundown apartment complex. “Fifth floor, third window. It’s the only one in his apartment, so your options are limited.” 

“You got a floor plan or something?” Tim asked, eyeing the surrounding buildings. “Small place like his, maybe furniture is flush with the wall below the window. Gotta know how high I need to be, case he drops for cover.” 

“I’ll get you something if I can,” Kendall promised. “But Vicks wants a sniper in place--” again, he pointed, “--there. And _now._ ”

Tim had worked worse situations with less intelligence, so he nodded and took off. 

\- 

An hour later--just after one in the afternoon--Tim was having his ear needlessly screamed into by SOG captain Steve Vicks. Vicks only raised his voice because he wanted an extension of himself and his decisions in the field; Tim could be that, but Vicks didn’t know Tim. Vicks, who led an experienced and militarized team, somehow thought Tim had all the self control of a frat boy if his shouts of _“DO NOT TAKE THAT SHOT, GUSTERSON”_ were any indication. 

“Tell _Gusterson_ I’ve got a better angle anyhow,” Tim snapped back. He’d settled into a narrow space on a roof adjacent to the apartment building they were staking out. He had shade, a camelbak full of water, and was in no hurry to warm his rifle. 

“I’ll have the shot,” Tim spoke firmly into the comm device. “You just tell me when I can take it. Sir.”

Tim waited, silent, for Vicks’ response. Either Vicks hadn’t heard the smart remark or he was mounting a verbal attack that would shake piss out of even the steeliest man. 

_Oh shit,_ Tim thought. _Oh, shit._

“You got visual, Gutterson?” Vicks asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Wait for my say-so.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tim watched his shot come and pass as the man stepped out of sight. He’d answered his cell phone--no doubt, a call placed by one of the officers on the street. Tim spotted him, too: balding and plainclothes among the sea of black body armor and slick helmets.

It turned into a hostage situation around hour five, and Tim settled in for what he was certain would be his show, in the end.

When the sun dropped, Tim wriggled free a pair of gloves from where he’d tucked them partway down the front of his pants. They were buttery-soft and blissfully warm, albeit somewhat ill-fitting over his big hands, but Tim was confident they wouldn’t disturb his work. He sucked sparingly at the tube roping around his pack for water and tried to keep still. His position was fairly exposed and if the target made an effort to look for him, Tim reasoned he’d be quickly spotted. By that time, however, he’d also have taken his shot.

Tim waited a total of seventeen hours before getting the roaring go-ahead from Vicks after negotiations failed and a hostage was wounded. It had been a long night and no one--gunman included--had slept. 

“Yes, sir,” Tim said, pulling the trigger. 

The shot produced a jerking movement of the man’s head and a ribbon of blood coloring the white wall behind him. 

In broad daylight, Tim rolled over and unzipped his pants, then pissed down the side of his slanted roof-turned-birdsnest. 

“Christ,” he gasped in relief, and someone on the comms system laughed. 

By the time Tim conferred with the SOG unit and returned to the marshal offices, almost an entire day had passed. Tim caught a glimpse of his desk before disappearing into the locker rooms to store his rifle and vest; nothing had moved. It was hardly as if he had been gone at all. 

Art caught up with him in the locker room just as Tim was changing his sweaty, bird shit-streaked shirt for a clean one. 

“Just got a call from Stevie Vicks at SOG,” Art said, and stood himself in front of the closed door leading to the bullpen. “Good work.”

Tim quirked his eyebrows in surprise. “He say that?”

“I paraphrased it from _tell your deputy not to piss on city property,_ ” Art confessed. The little, bemused shake of Art’s head told Tim he wasn’t in trouble, though he figured he ought to take the order to heart, nonetheless. 

“You can take the day,” Art said loudly, as if Tim was _physically_ so far removed from the situation that words alone couldn't reach him.

Tim tugged the shirt over his head and tucked the tails into his trousers--not without the odd streak of something awful themselves, but Tim didn’t have an extra pair. “Oh, yeah,” he drawled, “I’m real tore up about it.” 

“Son,” Art said in a tired tone that suggested the matter was not up for debate, “That’s not a prerequisite.”

Tim stared at the contents of his locker: rifle, change of clothes, a book. “Yeah?” he said eventually, thinking only of the merits of an early afternoon off of work. His eyes flitted to Art, then back to his locker. “Okay.” His desk could keep for another day, he supposed. 

He drove out to Jeff’s bar and lied about the incident so that he could pretend he was celebrating. 

“A stakeout,” Tim said, making no mention of his rifle. An elderly man at the bar--retired LMPD, he introduced himself--overheard and bought the next round. 

“We got ‘em,” Tim said, remembering the blood. 

\- 

An hour later, Tim and Jeff were pillowed on the couch in Tim’s apartment, kissing lazily. 

“You sure it’s okay that you just took off?” Tim asked, nipping at Jeff’s lip and momentarily stifling his answer. 

“I’m actually co-owner,” Jeff said, unable to smother his proud smile. “Two years now, so I get to make the executive decisions. Salted or unsalted nuts, that kind of thing.”

“Peanuts _and_ Pistachios,” Tim recalled from his most recent visit. “Was that your genius at work?” 

“S’why my name’s on the lease.”

Tim grinned encouragingly, then kissed Jeff full on the mouth. “It’s a great bar.”

“Clientele ain’t bad,” Jeff agreed.

They traded words for moans and laughter; Jeff was an eager kisser whereas Tim was an awkward blend of dependable and sensual. He’d kiss long and leisurely then suddenly stop and look completely wrecked: pupils blown, face flushed, lips red, open, and wet. Then he’d sort of press against Jeff--almost headbutting him in one instance--with every affordable limb. Tim would force a kind of pressure between their bodies, swear in a kind of vague relief, and begin the process over with a consuming kiss. 

While Tim’s lips found Jeff’s neck and bare shoulder--both men had wriggled out of their shirts at some point, a welcome departure from Tim’s earlier insistence of remaining dressed--Jeff toyed idly with Tim’s military dog tags. They were cold after the quick shower Jeff had deemed necessary (“You smell like this hand-me-down parakeet I had as a kid... It smelled like it was always dying.”). Jeff had to smile at what was engraved in the space designated for religious preference: _Ranger._

“You after war stories, friend?” Tim asked, willing his eyes to stay open. For the first time in a long time, he felt physically drained. His body ached for sleep in a way his mind could not and it was a welcome feeling.

“Something heroic,” Jeff pressed, resting his cheek against the hollow in Tim’s chest in which the metal tags pooled. 

“That’s a stretch,” Tim remarked dully. He realized very quickly there was nothing he wanted to share, so he cobbled together a lie. “You know, some of the guys in my unit called me Guts.”

“Mm,” Jeff murmured, smoothing his hand over Tim’s chest hair. “You puke a lot?”

“Ruined my punchline, jackass,” Tim said, delivering a bite to Jeff’s shoulder. 

Jeff grinned and tugged playfully on a patch of hair, sending Tim twisting in an effort to catch his mouth in a defiant kiss.

“ _Ow,_ ” Tim said very deliberately into Jeff’s mouth, then proceeded to initiate a rather demanding series of kisses and brushes of strong hands against skin that left Jeff feeling boneless.

When Tim got that wrecked look again, Jeff took the opportunity to give the expression its due cause. Slowly, he swept his hand along the waist of Tim’s pants. Tim broke away and sucked in a hiss of breath as warm fingertips met his skin. He eyed Jeff, who he noticed was too focused on other matters to meet his gaze.

“Yeah,” Tim murmured, shifting to give Jeff access. “Okay.” 

Immediately, Jeff pressed a scratchy kiss to the soft skin on Tim’s belly. Tim felt a flash of cool, smooth fronts of teeth and realized Jeff was smiling against his flesh, thrilled with this development. The previous three weeks had known little else beyond kissing and touching and Jeff disappearing to the bathroom afterwards to rub one out and Tim fronting obliviousness. 

Tim tangled his hand into Jeff’s dark curls and then released it, instead moving his hands to grip the arm and back of the couch. In a body he couldn’t trust some nights not to turn against itself, Tim wasn’t so confident in this exercise to rest his hands on another person. 

Tim watched as Jeff unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, then wriggled them down, exposing slim hips, a curly spread of dark blonde pubic hair, and his cock. His heart started to race-- _I’m excited,_ Tim told himself--and Tim closed his eyes tight and buried his nose into the space between his shoulder and the couch cushions. 

Jeff kissed the soft skin, tasting its warmth and newness. He maneuvered slowly, wetting Tim’s cock in his mouth before working to get him hard and excited. After nearly two entire minutes, he stopped, wiped his mouth, and sat up. 

“Is it?”

Tim opened his eyes. “Huh?”

Jeff was still sat between Tim’s legs, massaging Tim’s cock in one hand. “You’re not... at all.”

“Shit,” Tim breathed, sitting up and staring down at his flaccid penis. It rested in Jeff’s hand like an ugly extra finger, long and thick but useless. If Tim thought it at least looked a little pink at the tip, it was only wishful thinking. _“Fuck--”_

“It’s not a problem,” Jeff assured him at once. “What do you like? Just coach me through it.”

“I like a mouth on my dick,” Tim said, his face drained of color. “Shit. Sorry.” He moved out of Jeff’s reach, fastened his trousers, and only _just_ refrained from burying his entire face into his hands. He rubbed at his throat and jaw with his right, as if he could somehow physically summon the right words to say. 

“Maybe it’s the sleeping pills,” Jeff said, saving Tim the trouble of speaking first. 

“What?” 

“I saw that you refilled your prescription. It’s a common side effect.” 

Tim blinked confusedly for a moment, unable to follow Jeff’s logic. _Stop taking the pills, stop sleeping--just to get hard?_ “Yeah, well, I need them.” The response came out a little mean-spirited. 

“Okay.” Jeff acquiesced gently. After a moment, Tim gave a bedraggled sigh--twinged almost with laughter rather than regret. He advanced slowly on Jeff, guiding the man to lay back, unfasten his jeans, and spread his thighs. Tim kissed him all the while, gentle and sweet, but always pulling back after making contact, as if hesitant. 

He pulled away again and stared at Jeff with an expression that didn’t seem the gel with his assured touch or enthusiasm. He looked for all the world like he expected--or even _wanted_ \--Jeff to knock him on his ass, tell him to back the fuck off. 

“Where are my manners,” Tim murmured, moving to his knees and taking in his hands what rested between Jeff’s legs. Jeff was already hard, excited by the gravity of Tim’s voice, the fluidness of his motions. Tim rolled the dribble of pre-cum with his thumb, coating the head of Jeff’s cock. When he licked his thumb clean, Jeff shuddered. 

Tim’s hard, gravelly voice was a pleasant misnomer; his mouth was warm, wet, and sweet. 

He took Jeff’s cock into his mouth, wetting the head first. Tim worked slowly, reminding himself that blowing a man wasn’t just about achieving a necessary release; it could be enduring and deeply pleasurable. 

Tim worked shuddered half-breaths and the odd whimper out of Jeff and had found for himself a rolling rhythm until fingertips skirted up his bare arms and shoulders. Tim shivered and opened his eyes into cautious slits. 

Jeff’s hands brushed the hollows of Tim’s cheeks, smoothed over his neck, then cradled the shells of his ears before finally tangling in Tim’s hair.

It took every shred of Tim’s willpower not to jerk back or twist Jeff’s arm away. In his mind, Tim even envisioned a satisfying _snap_ if necessary. 

Under two heavy hands and half-lidded eyes, Tim chanced a look at Jeff. His grip on Tim was purely unconscious. With his free hand, Tim found Jeff’s right and pulled it out of his hair, knotting their fingers instead. Jeff drew his left hand out of Tim’s hair, cupping his cheek and ear again, instead. Then, he found Tim’s other hand cupping his balls and guided it away. He allowed Tim to pin his hands to the couch seat cushions. While this left Tim doing all the work with only his mouth, it also endowed him with an unexpected level of control. Tim was glad for it and sought to make the gesture worthwhile for Jeff.

Tasting a dribble more of cum at the back of his throat, Tim felt Jeff was getting close. Tim swallowed and alternatively pumped and sucked, falling into a rhythm that quickly--and loudly--brought Jeff to climax. The tight, almost painful clench of their hands gave an added ounce of euphoria--a kind of natural high tinged with just enough hurt that the comedown was all the sweeter for it. 

And--despite not being hard, himself--Tim had a look of satisfaction warming his features, too.

“Shit... that was amazing,” Jeff breathed. He felt rattled. His hands ached. “I really don’t want to go back to work.” 

Tim returned to his place on the couch, seemingly to bask in Jeff’s exalted favor. “You can’t just fill a trough, let the drunks at it?”

Jeff contemplated the venture, but ultimately had to reject it. “What if the smaller, weaker drunks got pushed out of the way?”

“That would be sad,” Tim agreed. He turned and tented Jeff’s body with his torso, hands kept flat on either side of Jeff’s still open-legged stance, Tim’s knee in place to form a stabilizing tripod effect. When they kissed and Jeff tasted himself on Tim’s lips. 

“Wish I could stay,” Jeff murmured into the corner of Tim’s mouth. “I’d like to try and return the favor.”

“No,” Tim said at once. Then, schooling his grimace and dropping his head to rest against Jeff’s, he assured, “Don’t worry about it. It’s like you said... the pills.” 

\- 

Late that same evening, Tim heard a familiar pounding at his door: three heavy knocks made with the flat of a fist--the patented mark of law enforcement. Tim figured it was Raylan in spite the knock; the ungodly visiting hour spoke for itself.

Answering the door, Tim looked tired, but not as though he’d been sleeping. His hair was mostly neat and, although he’d traded slacks for a pair of sweatpants, he still sported the same blue sweater he’d changed into before leaving work early. Behind him, the apartment was dark save for the glow of a television screen illuminating a couch, coffee table, and otherwise sparse living room. 

Although he only heard the muffled soundtrack with which to make his judgments, Raylan wagered that Tim was watching some 80s film. 

“Oh shit,” Tim remarked dully, standing aside to allow Raylan in. “It’s the cops.” 

Raylan only smirked at him, then proceeded to awkwardly occupy the space just free of the doorway. Tim closed the door and ventured past him, bending to fetch the remote from the coffee table. 

Tim muted the television--and here Raylan found himself vindicated, watching Kevin Bacon race a tractor against a local boy and win--and stood expectantly, awaiting Raylan’s explanation. 

When none came, Tim nodded toward the binder Raylan held at his side. “Finally finished your office-wide burn book, huh? Nelson Dunlop’s a big slut, I hope you’ve made that clear.” 

“I’ve got a whole chapter,” Raylan affirmed. A second knock at the door interrupted his sharing of the real purpose for his visit. Tim again made for the door. He opened it and sort of disappeared behind it, as though he could excuse himself from the growing cast of characters littering his home.

“Guy from the bar,” Raylan acknowledged, setting his wide eyes on the visitor. He glanced at Tim, who shrugged. 

“Also called Jeff,” Jeff returned, then nodded at Raylan. “You’re not a great tipper.”

Raylan didn’t miss a beat. “Well, I figured Tim could handle that.”

“We should all do our fair share,” Tim chimed in, still hanging back by the door. Then, speaking to Jeff in the same flat tone, Tim added, “Didn’t think you were coming by tonight.” 

Tim’s lackluster invitation did not deter Jeff; he made his way in and plopped a take-away container on the kitchen counter, but kept something else--a paper bag from a local pharmacy--fisted at his side. “I remembered that you like leftover birthday cake.”

Tim snapped up the container. “Whose birthday?”

“You don’t know her,” Jeff dismissed.

“Even better,” Tim said, accepting the fork Jeff pulled knowingly from a side drawer. “Thanks.” Tim’s eyes flitted to meet Jeff’s briefly, and Raylan suddenly felt as though he was intruding on something incredibly private. 

In that same instance, however, Raylan felt as though he was being played. He knew Tim was good for it--the building could be on fire and he’d patiently wait for someone to finish a phone call before slowly, lowly asking that they evacuate the premises--but he didn’t expect as much from the bartender. The entire exchange was so easy, however, that Raylan ultimately acquiesced to its truth: on some plane, the two were friendly. 

In reality, the three men were awkwardly stood around the length of countertop in Tim’s kitchen.

“What do you need, Raylan?” Tim asked in his low drawl. “Cake?”

“I’ll pass,” Raylan said eyeing the pink icing-drizzled chocolate cake with disdain.

“What’s that face,” Tim huffed, “Mr. Ice Cream For Breakfast.” 

Ignoring the remark, Raylan stood opposite of Tim at the counter. He set down the binder he’d brought and turned it to face Tim. “Art wanted you to look over these photos, see if you recognized--anyone.” Raylan was careful to keep details to a minimum, aware of Tim’s company. “I meant to get it to you earlier. Sorry.”

With his free hand, Tim opened the collection of photographs, flipped through the first few pages--mostly mug shots, some drivers licenses--then summarily closed it. “My guys were wearing masks,” Tim said. “Got any pictures of guys in masks?”

Raylan fought to growing urge to roll his eyes. “What about the two who showed up on the mountain?”

“I told you, I only overheard them talking. Strangely, no one seemed eager to get close to a car that was rigged with high explosives.” 

Raylan, surprised that Tim had spoken openly and in detail about the ordeal, involuntarily glanced at Jeff. 

“Wasn’t him,” Tim drawled through a mouthful of sticky cake. 

It wasn’t often that Art had Raylan play messenger, and this was why: Raylan didn’t have the patience for it. He dropped a heavy hand over the binder and pulled it back. Tim, fast as Raylan’s quick-draw, issued his own claim. 

“I’ll look at it,” he said, and didn’t loosen his grip until Raylan did the same. “Later. This is the first I’ve heard of this in a while, anyway.” Tim quirked his eyebrows knowingly at Raylan. “Art decided to keep me off it.”

“If you asked, he’d let you--”

“Art doesn’t talk to me so much,” Tim leveled, eyes hard. He stuck his fork into the remaining glob of cake, finished. “And don’t play dumb, Raylan. The evidence is right here.” Tim extended his index finger and tapped twice on the binder cover. “This was on your desk when I was heading out. Art could have said something, saved you the trip.” 

Raylan opened and closed his mouth; if there was an argument to be made, it wasn’t from Raylan on Art’s account.

“I said some stupid shit at the hospital,” Tim admitted. “Most of which, I don’t even remember. Guess Art does.” 

Patience already dangerously thin, Raylan found he lacked the composure for addressing whatever it was Tim wasn’t really saying to him. He tapped the book instead. “Why don’t you just look through it now and I’ll see that it gets back,” he said as though he was assuaging some great concern Tim had about where the binder claimed residence. 

Something sparked in Tim’s eyes as he met Raylan’s. He wet his lips and turned his head just a hair, addressing Jeff: “Uh, I’ll be a minute, if you--”

“Sure,” Jeff said, taking the hint. His disappeared into Tim’s bedroom. 

“You got eyes on someone here?” Tim asked, deadly serious. 

“No,” Raylan lied.

“What page,” Tim pressed and wet his lips again. The icing had stained them slightly. 

“Just give me a call when you--”

“ _What page._ ”

Raylan held his stony gaze a moment then sighed, swore, and snatched the binder up. He found the page bearing a face Boyd had selected when Raylan showed _him_ the book earlier. Raylan turned it around for Tim to see. The page boasted three images and brief descriptions--names, DOB, most recent arrest--of men Tim, admittedly, did not recognize. He stared at each face, memorizing it. 

“What have you got on him?” Tim asked carefully. 

Raylan looked surprised. “You recognize someone?”

When Tim didn’t answer right away, Raylan swore again. 

“Just tell me,” Tim said, eyes burning holes into the page. None of the faces meant anything to him, but somehow he didn’t doubt he’d see them again--in his nightmares, to be sure, and perhaps in lock-up, if Raylan could pull it off. “If you’ve got it in your head that...” Tim gestured helplessly at the photos. “I’ll give the word.” Then, like it physically pained him to say so, Tim added, “I trust you.”

“No,” Raylan shook his head, promising, “I don’t, really.” 

Tim managed not to look disappointed. “You want a beer?” he asked, turning and bending at the fridge to fetch one for himself. 

“Naw,” Raylan said, waving his hand. They both adopted a kind of alien politeness, like strangers at a funeral, each pretending for the other’s sake he wasn’t feeling especially broken at the moment. “I won’t stay. You’ve got company.” 

“I’m just gonna suck his dick,” Tim dismissed. “Won’t be but a minute.” 

“Dream big!” came Jeff’s voice from the other room. Tim grinned toothily in turn, ducking his head some so that Raylan couldn’t see the full effect.

“Butt stuff?” Tim called back, the picture of innocence. It earned him a guffaw from the other room.

“Well, hell,” Raylan said, always weary to consider the term _scandalized_ but warming to it now, “That’d be my cue. Best of luck to you both in all your endeavors.” 

“Huzzah,” Tim toasted Raylan with his beer, then took a healthy swig.

Leaving the binder behind, Raylan started for the door. Hand on the knob, he paused and stepped back. Tim hadn’t moved; he was still leaning against the kitchen counter, beer bottle in hand, inscrutable expression smoothing the lines on his face. He didn’t look particularly eager, Raylan thought, to venture into his bedroom. “Are you--”

“Don’t,” Tim said. And Raylan didn’t. 

\- 

Raylan sat in his car, hands fisted and resting on the steering wheel. He regretting not giving Tim the name of the man Boyd had pointed out to him. He’d realized only as audience to Tim’s desperation, however, that he didn’t trust Boyd’s word enough to hold it as his own. 

Movement across the parking lot caught Raylan’s attention. 

“Hey!” Raylan stuck his head out of his car window and waved Jeff over. He’d donned his jacket and had absconded with an apple from the hideous bowl on Tim’s counter. “You’re not staying?”

Jeff glanced between Raylan and the apartment building. “Are you?” he asked uncertainly, and then--not without a hint of disdain for Raylan, personally--he added, “Tim wanted to look at that file you brought him.” 

Raylan nodded. “How ‘bout what you brought him?”

“The... cake?” Jeff asked, confused. “He offered to share.”

Raylan had to remind himself that people he spoke to gave honest answers, sometimes, and the smartass inflection was all in Raylan’s head. “In the _paper bag,_ son.” Jeff was just shy of Raylan’s height and similarly built, but ‘cop voice’ made anyone feel small. 

Jeff shrugged.

Raylan sighed. He was too tired from driving to meet his sorry fugitive every morning and night, too fed up with Boyd Crowder’s bullshit, too at a loss with the matter of his and Tim’s kidnapping and where the case stood now, in shambles... he found he didn’t have any qualms, suddenly, about threatening Tim’s--what? Friend? Boyfriend? “Why don’t you go on and tell me,” Raylan encouraged, “Else I walk you back up those stairs and make you show me.”

“It was just--over the counter sleeping pills,” Jeff said, hurried and blushing. 

“Why’s he need those?”

“To... sleep?” Jeff frowned and glanced back towards Tim’s place. “Did you--are you an ex of his?” 

Huffing out a sorry little laugh, Raylan assured: “Uh, _no._ ”

“So you’re just a coworker who stalks out the parking lot by his apartment?” Jeff asked, his tone adopting an unfamiliarly hard edge. 

Raylan sported a delirious little expression that spoke as much to his exhaustion as his amusement with Jeff playing the role as Tim’s protector. _Do you even know Tim?_ he wanted to ask. Instead, he simply smiled. “Yes, I’m exactly that.” 

Jeff shook his head, aware that he’d made the wrong assumption. “Sorry. I-- I know who you are. Tim told me about last month... the kidnapping, murder attempt.”

In a mistakenly easy drawl, Raylan intoned, “He told you about all that, huh?” 

“I’m glad you’re both okay,” Jeff said sincerely. 

Raylan set his jaw. The lone nod he managed to produce was about as weak as his apology: “Sorry to have disturbed your evening.” 

He put his car into gear and hauled ass out of the parking lot, all the while shaking his head, thinking, _Okay, okay, okay._

\- 

“Tim,” Art tapped on Tim’s desk, drawing Tim’s eyes away from a file he was reading. It was well after five in the afternoon and the marshal offices were largely empty. “Drinks. My treat--Raylan’s buying.” 

Art grinned, pleased with himself. Given Raylan’s less-than-amused expression, Tim supposed Art had gotten wind of Raylan’s fugitive daytrip program. “Join us, huh?” 

“Naw,” Tim shook his head. He balanced the open file on the corner of his desk, freeing up keyboard space so that he could search a name in the U.S. Marshal database. “I’ve got plans with the Weekend Friend.”

Art made a disappointed, eyebrow-heavy face usually reserved for Raylan. Tim had used the term before, but only in jest. “I thought you weren’t calling him that. Something about giving the wrong impression?”

“Does it give the impression that we’re fucking?” Tim asked coolly, his eyes locked on his computer screen. “Because that’s nobody’s goddamn business.” 

It didn’t seem possible for the office to fall any quieter, but Tim’s comment had assured its doing exactly that. Raylan heard, at the very least. Nelson Dunlap, too, hovering over Raylan’s desk with a heavy file in hand. And of course Art--to whom the comment was directed--heard, and was not amused.

Art slipped his hands into his pockets. “Why don’t you step into my office, Tim.”

“That’s not necessary, sir.” Tim pecked away at his keyboard.

“Humor me.”

“Can’t,” Tim said, chancing a look up at Art. “You’ve got your serious face going.” 

Art said nothing. Tim eventually closed the file, stood up, and ventured into Art’s office. Art followed a moment later and closed the door behind him. 

Neither man spoke for a long while. Tim, because he couldn’t make sense of all the shit that found its way out of his mouth, and Art--for the same reason, really.

“You’re giving me a lot of shit, Tim,” Art finally said, moving to stand behind his desk. He stared at the collection of papers and files littering the desktop for a moment, and in some far corner of Tim’s mind that associated Art’s office with that of his grade school principal’s, Tim wondered if Art was going to write him up for causing some kind of workplace disturbance. 

Art continued, “Far as I can tell, I haven’t shuffled you off of cases, or kept you at your desk any more than your broken ankle did. All this, per _your_ request. You’re a smart kid, and I trust you to make good decisions, so the only possible answer for the look you’re giving me just now is that you _can’t_ make those good decisions just yet, and I was wrong to think you could.” 

Tim’s expression was such that he expected--and was prepared for--a greater verbal thrashing from Art.

“Sorry,” Tim said distractedly, lost after what felt like an eternity under Art’s hard stare. “It was a stupid thing to say.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Art snapped. “You say whatever the hell it is you wanna say, Tim. Say it to the whole goddamn office. Or _don’t_ , which is what I thought you were going for.” Art smoothed a hand over his bald head. “And--Jesus, I don’t even know where to begin with that.” 

“Maybe don’t bring Jesus into it, for a start.”

Art leveled the closest thing to a dirty look he could muster at Tim. The expression did not rest well with either man. “You got a real smart mouth,” he warned. 

“‘Cause I’m a real smart kid,” Tim said, echoing Art’s barely-there insult. 

Raylan rapped his knuckle against the glass door to Art’s office and let himself in. “Dunlop asked, and I quote, _what the fuck was that?_ Said I’d ask. You got something you wanna try on here, lest he finds his way to the watercooler?”

“I don’t give a shit,” Tim drawled, still staring at Art. 

“Do you really think you should be doing this?” Art asked, his tone finally bridging the twin pillars of exasperation and pity he’d mentally erected in most of his dealings with Tim. 

Tim said nothing. 

Art threw his hands up, at a loss. “Well hell, Tim, you had a lot to say earlier!” 

The look Tim gave him could have cut glass. “Sorry,” he repeated, though any sincerity was garbled and lost deep in his throat, “But I was waiting for Raylan to hop to my defense.”

Raylan frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Until Jeff’s a witness to a murder, or himself a fugitive, or I start playing bouncer at his bar, I think I’m in the clear.” Tim turned his hard stare on Raylan. “Ain’t that how things work around here?”

The complete list was more than Art was privy to--and god _damn_ if Tim didn’t speak slow enough for Art to have taken notes--so Raylan was quick to leapfrog over it. “I think what Art’s trying to say is, Tim, it’s only been a month...”

“You think I’ve missed my period?” Tim asked, pursing his lips. 

“Can you be fucking serious for one goddamn minute--” 

“Why?” Tim turned on Art again, suddenly looking more hurt than lethal. “This ain’t a serious conversation. Consider for a second what you’re trying to say to me, _and then reconsider it._ ” 

When it became clear that he’d successfully trampled all opposition, Tim weighed his options. He could leave the matter there, having severed all loose threads and simply count the days and months until memories faded--which they would, Tim knew, for his co-workers if not for him. And that would be enough. 

Or, Tim could reinvest himself in his office, occupation, and work. Although he didn’t have the goodwill to extend, he could gamble here and now, banking on the guilty consciences of his friends. He could subject himself to more questions and unwanted attention, but maybe accomplish something in the process. Even with an empty hand, Tim could buy back a little esteem.

And to be fair, Tim didn’t know of any other Army volunteers who _weren’t_ gambling men. 

“I recognized a man in that binder,” Tim put forward. “But not from the shoot-out at Clemens’ cousin’s place, or the mountain. He frequents the VA in Louisville. I’ve got a buddy I meet up with there, sometimes. They’re in the same NA group. My friend might know him.” 

“Mmhm,” Art said noncommittally. “Aren’t those meetings confidential?”

Tim bit back the more skathing reply that threatened to shoot out of his mouth like venom; he figured it was best not to burn all his bridges. “My friend’s been using since Afghanistan. I don’t think he’s a stickler for the rules.” 

“No,” Art decided. 

Tim sighed--disgruntled, but not defeated. “Then I’ll go, and not give a shit myself.” 

At that, Art looked ready to take it outside with Tim, so Raylan intervened. 

“ _I’ll_ go,” Raylan insisted, hands up and parted with the intent to establish peace. 

Tim’s expression was one of abject bemusement. “And do _what,_ hold the door for Legless Pete?” 

“So you do go to these NA meetings?” Art pressed.

Tim had the feeling he was being double-teamed, and didn’t like it. “Getting filler for my book. _How to Lose a War, Lose Your Friends, and Fuck Yourself._ ”

“Long title,” Raylan observed. 

“ _Long book,_ ” Tim spat. He looked at his boss and his co-worker and between them saw his crumbling career, a mountain of interpersonal bullshit, and his dead-in-the-water lead. Feeling like he’d gambled and lost, Tim shrugged. “To answer your question, Boss: I’m busy. I won’t be joining you for drinks. Thanks for the offer.” 

Tim secured the files strewn about his desk into the locked cabinets pressed against the wall. He dumped out the remains of his coffee in the sink. He didn’t say a word to Dunlop, who was still awkwardly hunched over Raylan’s desk. 

“For what it’s worth, Art,” Raylan tried after Tim had gone from the building, “I’ve met the guy.” 

“I don’t care if you’ve slept with him, too,” Art said. “God _damnit._ ”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raylan thinks his and Boyd's friendship will work in his favor. Jeff thinks his and Tim's relationship will afford them a pleasant Date Night.  
> Everyone is wrong, wrong, wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys can forgive the long hiatus! There will be more in the next week or two--this chapter was originally 20,000+ words, so I split it apart. 
> 
> There's totally a plan to wrap this up, btw. _Totally._

It was fucking freezing. With each step he took, Raylan had to remind himself that the crunch he heard shift and break under his boots was bits of gravel and mining dust--not ice. Miami had really and truly warped his senses if he thought Kentucky would see ice in early December. 

Raylan squinted up at the sky. It was dull and gray; the only color came from the few leafless trees crowding in on the chilly spread from far-off hills. He’d parked his car near a convenience store and wandered the holler on foot. At least in the past, Raylan found people more amiable to chatting if he didn’t ride up in a car that cost more than their home.

Approaching his car, Raylan found he had a visitor. 

Raylan looked Boyd up and down, and was immediately envious of the man’s heavier coat and scarf. “It ain’t even snowing, you pussy,” Raylan said by way of a greeting. 

Boyd waved a gloved hand and Raylan wanted to hit him. “Evening, Raylan. I heard we might cross paths sooner or later. Seems we’re after the same thing, you and me.”

Raylan raised a doubtful eyebrow. “You after criminals now, too?” 

“No,” Boyd smiled. “The competition.” 

Boyd jutted a thumb down the street, toward Johnny’s bar. Raylan shrugged one shoulder and the two started off, Raylan coming into step with Boyd. The two walked together for a spell down the unpaved road. “What do you know about these guys?” Raylan asked, tired and straightforward because his own investigations hadn’t proved fruitful. 

“Oh, Raylan.” A grin split Boyd’s face and ignited his wild eyes. “Has it come to this?” 

_‘Forget it’_ was on the tip on Raylan’s tongue, but he bit it back, saying nothing. He gave Boyd the simple satisfaction of having something over his childhood friend. “I ain’t following you to your cousin’s bar because I plan to get pissed with you.”

“But you plan to get _me_ pissed, then interrogate me.”

Raylan gave a wry smile. “I’ve never known you to be a tight-lipped anything, Boyd, drunk or not.”

It was Boyd’s own ambition that kept him from revelling in Raylan’s need--much. It was his personality, though, that had him acting like a dick about it. Boyd rested against the door to Johnny’s bar. If Raylan wasn’t drinking, he wasn’t coming in. (“That’s how we keep out the riff-raff,” Boyd explained.) 

Exasperated and freezing, Raylan started back toward his car. 

Boyd called after him, “They ain’t here, by the way. I’ll call if they show up.” 

-

Raylan scrubbed his palm against the prickly hairs on his face. He’d spent most of the night driving home from Harlan, quiet along the lonesome roads home, glad for a little silence after spending the day traipsing around with Boyd Crowder’s racing mouth and the man attached to it. 

The office was quieter than usual, and Raylan was beginning to believe the old adage people were passing around--that criminal activity decreased with the temperature. Miami, Raylan supposed, was a fine example. 

Raylan peered through the transparent partition between their desks, watching as Tim worked, dutifully scanning through a crooked judge’s last twenty years of court rulings. The day after his argument with Art, Tim returned to work seemingly endowed with a sturdy new resolve. He apologized to Art in full view of the office, and even shared a word with a wide-eyed Dunlop.

Rather than keep his head down and work tedious and solitary tasks, Tim--now officially without his ankle brace--spent an entire work week making routine rounds about the office. Of the few teams actively pursuing a criminal operative, Tim latched on to two and provided detailed research that, by mid-week, led directly to two clean and long-awaited arrests.

He ought to be riding a wave of well-deserved adulation, Raylan thought, but with a single nod toward the news, Tim simply turned away and began the grunt work that might prove fruitful in a separate case. 

There was the odd moment when Raylan would glance through the partition and see Tim looking as stony and miserable as ever, leading Raylan to rightly presume that Tim’s new attitude was nothing more than what his ankle brace had been: a prop holding him up, forcing normalcy. As often as Raylan saw the mask’s slippage, Tim was just as quick to catch it and bury himself deeper within his own disguise. He’d run an errand or offer his services on a team seeking to make an arrest; “I’d just be glad to get out of the office,” he’d say.

 _Shrewd,_ Raylan thought to himself. It wasn’t much of a leap to connect Tim’s healed foot to his brighter attitude. It was simple, acceptable, and the sort of connection people liked to make. It was the _healthy body, healthy mind_ bullshit usually reserved for the advertising on single serve yogurt packets.

Staring blankly at the jumble of gray and white gradation smothering his computer screen, Raylan supposed it would behoove him to make the most of Tim’s amiable mood--put-upon though it was.

Earlier in the day, Raylan’s efforts had been quickly rebuffed.

(“Don’t talk to me,” Tim said when Raylan approached his desk shortly after noon, angling for a favor. Tim’s eyes steadily scanned his computer screen while his hand slowly brought a stalk of processed cheese to his mouth.

Raylan made an amused face that Tim didn’t meet; he was focused on a digital file he’d accessed through the state prison database. “What--not ever?”

“During my lunch break,” Tim clarified, speaking around his full mouth. “I’m _eating._ ”

“Fair enough,” Raylan acquiesced. “When can you pencil me in for a brief chat?”

“During _your_ lunch break.”)

“Hey, coworker,” Raylan said, tapping the desk partition with his knuckles.

Tim glanced up.

Jangling a small bag of vending machine pretzels over into Tim’s desk space, Raylan said, “Lunchtime. I really need that favor.”

Tim drew in a long breath through his nose before answering. “Sure. Lemme just set fire to all this work, feed the ashes to a dog, and send that dog to live in a farm upstate until all your needs are satisfied. Lemme just do that. One second.”

“I’ll wait,” Raylan assured helpfully. Then, “I’m serious, by the way. And this is to do with an _actual_ case I’ve _actually_ been assigned.”

“Well why didn’t you say so?” Tim said, not budging an inch.

Scratching the back of his head with a capped pen, Raylan supposed that was as genial as Tim could stand to be with him, and was comforted to know, then, that some things didn’t change. 

“That new map program we’re supposed to use,” Raylan gestured at his computer and continued to talk, certain that Tim would hear him even if he didn’t care to listen. “I can’t figure the goddamn thing out. I’ve zoomed in on some... fuckin’... pothole.”

It was ultimately Raylan’s complete helplessness that drove Tim out of his seat and had him circling his coworker’s desk. Three months ago when the new system had been installed, Tim was pleasantly surprised to find that the U.S. Marshal service had essentially bought Army leftovers.

(“I used this package back in ‘07,” Tim had said, explaining away his ease with the program. “Bet I could launch a missile with this, too.”

Art hadn’t been so amused. “If there’s a tactical strike on the Mary Todd Lincoln House, I’ll know who to arrest.”)

Tim studied Raylan’s screen a moment, trying to make sense of the mess, himself. Raylan snapped open the pretzel bag, pleased. He offered the bag to Tim, who snaked in a hand and allowed himself only one. He didn’t even eat it, though; Raylan watched his hand rest on the desk momentarily, and when it was again raised the pretzel was left behind. 

“Unless you’re planning to carry out an air raid on your bail jumper, you don’t need all this,” Tim mumbled, leaning over Raylan’s shoulder and elbowing in to get ahold of the computer mouse. With a few clicks, layers of grainy elevation data and sloping viewsheds disappeared. A few clicks more and Raylan was looking at something not unlike his beloved google maps: a simple, streamlined vision of a neighborhood, in black, white, and gray.

“And on the seventh day...” Raylan intoned, grinning unabashedly at Tim’s quick work. Raylan took satisfaction, too, from the fact that Tim’s aid had not been too difficult to wrangle in. As was always Raylan’s prerogative, he now knew he could call upon Tim again, if needed. 

Rather than promptly return to his chair, work, and errands, Tim lazily perched on Raylan’s desk, legs split to take in the corner.

“Please,” Raylan said, extending the gesture after the fact, “Get comfortable.” Tim smirked at him and swung his legs a bit.

“Show me,” he said, turning his head towards the computer screen. His eyes were half-lidded and he wore an easy smile. 

“Pardon? Show you what?” Raylan grinned a little, pleased that Tim was back to needling him. “If you’re after my porn folder, you might want to settle in, maybe pull up a chair. You’ll get a crick in your neck, otherwise.”

Tim’s smile twitched like he’d held it too long and it was threatening to break. “Show me that you know how to work the program, so I know I won’t be bothered again.”

“I got it, Tim,” Raylan assured, now feeling defensive against Tim’s short tone. 

“So you’ll stop e-mailing me three lines of text--farmhouse adjacent, two story house, _maybe_ near a river--and expect me to find what it is you couldn’t take the time to figure yourself?” Tim seemed settled in at his position; so much so that his ass bumped against Raylan’s coffee mug. 

“You like those,” Raylan countered. He eyed his mug, but did not reach out to move it. 

Tim did like the puzzles--the search for something that was ultimately _there_ , _somewhere_ on a map, waiting for him--but he did not always appreciate being pulled away from his own work by someone thinking they were doing him a favor. “I do not,” he stipulated flatly.

“Well you got a smug certain way of showing it,” Raylan groused. “Ending every email with ‘dumbass.’”

“That’s just how I sign my name,” Tim said while twisting to reach an arm back and secure the coffee mug. He handed it off to Raylan. “Seems apropos, seeing how often I get roped into doing your work.”

Because it seemed like the petulant thing to do, Raylan took a long slurp of coffee. “Well, in Japanese, the word for ‘dumbass’ is the same for ‘friend.’”

“So that’s four words you know,” Tim observed, amused despite his flat tone.

Raylan chanced a sly grin. “I am a connoisseur of the culture, yes.”

“An ambassador, really.”

Raylan snapped his index finger at Tim, catching the man’s meaning. “I _did_ bring lunch for the office from that Japanese place, once, didn’t I? I do my part.”

When Tim donned a faux-appreciative little frown and began to slowly, endearingly clap his hands, Raylan had to take effort to smother the smile that threatened to overtake him. He drew a hand over his hair--always conscious of his missing hat--and allowed Tim’s mocking applause to wash over him. 

“How do you do it?” For sounding like a steel rake being drawn over rocks all the time, Tim’s voice was unnervingly honey-sweet as he proceeded to tease Raylan. “You’re such a giver.” 

Raylan smiled tiredly in turn. Usually, he and Tim could keep a joke going longer than was funny--or so Art would say when he eventually came to break up their giggling (another of Art’s terms). But here, Raylan couldn’t do it. Never mind that Tim’s tight smile was as close as he’d come to looking eager and expectant--Raylan found himself at a loss to engage. He supposed it was just another one of the things Tim wanted to take back--like his ability to work and sleep, he wanted to joke and speak with the same easy cadence that came so naturally to him. 

Only, Tim couldn’t accomplish this alone, and in Raylan he was sorry to discover he had an unwilling partner. 

“All right,” Tim said, rough and low, like he’d been told off. 

“Shit,” Raylan said, knowing it sounded enough like an apology that Tim heard it, too. “I’m tired. Hey--how are things with Jeff?”

The corner of Tim’s mouth curled and nearly chanced a scowl. Raylan knew he’d inadvertently marched into dangerous territory--Tim hadn’t spoken about Jeff or similar relations unless there was beer involved, so what made Raylan bring it up at work? Idiocy or absentmindedness emerged as top contenders, and Raylan was quick to accept the former. 

For a brief moment, Tim only looked amused, like Raylan had told a wickedly smart joke. His mask back into place, Tim drawled coolly: “I think he’s gonna propose, make an honest woman outta me.” 

Rather than Tim’s blank expression, Raylan’s gaze was drawn just over his shoulder and squarely on the door to the Marshal offices. “Shit,” he said again. Another apology.

Tim craned his neck to see the object of Raylan’s concern: AUSA Vasquez. 

His winter coat was long and a little damp from recent rain. Although he worked in the same courthouse that housed their offices, Tim and Raylan both came to the same conclusion: it was well past any recognizable lunch hour; Vasquez had made a special trip into work. 

“Deputy Gutterson,” Vasquez inclined his head as he came to a stop. His leather shoes squeaked against the floor. “A word?”

Tim slid off of Raylan’s desk and wordlessly followed behind Vasquez, eyeing the occupied conference room with a frown. Art, seeing the pair, opened his office door to them.

Acutely aware that he wasn’t invited to this meeting, Art left his office in exchange for Tim’s place on Raylan’s desk. Attention very much on Tim and Vasquez, Art pretended to be interested in Raylan’s work. 

“Tim’s making me learn,” Raylan explained, gesturing absently at his computer screen. 

“He likes that shit,” Art said. Neither man was especially present in their conversation. 

“No, he does not.”

“Huh.”

In Art’s office, neither Tim nor Vasquez moved to take a seat--and Tim, only in following Vasquez’s cues. 

“What can I do for you?” Tim began coolly.

Vasquez started to speak--but retreated, and only managed to sigh distractedly. “That’s too perfect an opener for exactly what I _don’t want to say._ ” 

“All right,” Tim said slowly, feeling no less awkward than he had with Raylan not two minutes ago. “You want me to leave, come back in, and you start?”

Vasquez waved an errant hand, saying nothing for a time. When he finally spoke, it was clear he had chosen and ordered every word carefully. “I just thought you should know that the matter of the kidnapping, your shooting, the--all of it--it’s sealed. I’ll personally be notified if anyone requests details.”

“Okay.” The word came from deep in his throat and sounded foreign to Tim’s ears. Because Vasquez had made the trip, Tim felt compelled to add an awkward “Thank you” but Vasquez headed him off.

“This isn’t a favor,” Vasquez stressed. He made certain to impress upon Tim that what he’d done was to his own purpose, although Tim doubted it. And if Vasquez was honest with himself, he and Tim only wanted the same thing, in varying degrees: to stop thinking about the incident. “This,” he pointed to the space between Tim and himself, “Is this idle conversation. File’s closed.”

An unexpected favor or not, it was oddly comforting, Tim realized. He had not anticipated feeling any lighter, any _better_ until some material end was met, but having the details and the gossip all trapped in some kind of ether seemed to unfurl the long-held knot in his chest. 

“How about this weather?” Tim said, trying for the idlest of conversation.

“Heard it’s going to snow,” Vasquez returned with an appreciative nod.

“Naw,” Tim rebuffed, moving toward the door. He stopped, hand on the knob. “Not the Clemens murder, though,” Tim specified, inching away and turning so that his back was to the door. “The case itself is still open, right? I’m still looking into that.”

“Uh--yes, I suppose so. I wasn’t aware it was seeing much traction.”

Tim released the doorknob and turned to face Vasquez again. “We’re making due without witnesses, evidence, motive... all that extra stuff that sucks the fun right outta the work.”

“I see. And, uh-- _you_ are?”

Vasquez leveled the most exquisitely flat, expectant look at Tim that the Marshal was of half a mind to drag _Art_ into the room to witness such perfection. 

_This is how it’s done._

Tim wet his lips. “You seem surprised that I might be inclined to do my job.”

“You seem inclined to willfully misinterpret me,” Vasquez countered, again regarding Tim with that bone-dry expression. Tim wondered how many criminals Vasquez had destroyed on the bench with that look, and in his (idle) imaginings, he couldn’t help but brandish a crooked-toothed grin.

He stuck out his hand, giving one firm shake when Vasquez accepted it. “I appreciate it,” Tim said sincerely. He opened the door and allowed Vasquez to exit first. 

“What was that about?” Raylan only half-whispered when Tim returned to his desk. 

“Hmm? Oh, Vasquez thinks it’s going to snow.” 

\- 

Tim didn’t know what else he could expect, really, answering a series of knocks at his door just as he was starting his weekend.

“This going to be a thing, Raylan?” Tim asked, leaning against the doorframe. 

Although the gesture was somewhat lost under his winter coat, Raylan shrugged. “I’ll stop as soon as I get the impression you don’t want me here.”

“Would you like that in writing?” Tim asked, but nonetheless opened the door wider and allowed Raylan entrance.

Raylan hadn’t planned on visiting Tim again, especially after their tense interactions at work earlier in the week. Still, he’d gotten word on some names--just an offhand comment on who had his hat, heard second-or-third-hand from Boyd Crowder. It was enough to garner Raylan’s attention, but recruiting Tim’s might take something more concrete. 

“How’s the foot?” Raylan asked, stepping inside. Although he hadn’t planned to remove his coat, Tim kept his apartment unusually warm. He slid it off and folded it over a chair in the kitchen.

Tim made a face at the twisting pants leg and soft brace covering his ankle and foot. Although he no longer wore the brace to work, he felt he needed it some nights to couch against the ache. Still, he’d never intended to wear it in front of company--Raylan, least of all. “Better. But now I’m worried. Come Monday, what will we have to talk about?”

“Our weekend, if you’re interested.”

“No,” Tim answered shortly. “But you can sit down and make your pitch, and I’ll tell you why you’re stupid.”

“Well, that’s more than I expected,” Raylan said, making his way into the living room. 

Tim rubbed an elbow absently as Raylan followed him inside. Besides jeans and woolly socks, he was wearing a long-sleeve, dark gray shirt under an open green-and-blue plaid button-down. Coupled with his youthful face and blonde hair, he looked like he’d stepped out of _Outside_ magazine, or maybe a parody porno. Raylan took care not to voice either observation. 

Spotting a pair of legs dangling off the arm of the couch, Raylan stopped, cocked his head toward Tim, and asked in a harsh whisper, “Does he live here?”

“I can’t have friends?” Tim asked, not bothering to keep his voice low. He wanted to say that Jeff was around about as often as Raylan, but supposed sharing such a detail didn’t serve his purposes.

Raylan’s quirked eyebrows betrayed his doubts. “Wish I had friends like yours.”

Tim had learned his lesson a week ago in his argument with Art; he was best served by not sharing what wasn’t explicitly asked of him, and lying when it was. Raylan didn’t need to know, therefore, that Jeff and Tim had shared exactly four decidedly sexual encounters, and beyond a few make-out sessions since then, they had found themselves in a serious lull. 

“Now that you mention it,” Tim observed flatly, “It’s getting to feel a little crowded. Why don’t you make this quick?”

Jeff stirred into wakefulness, groggily recognizing his surroundings and, then, his and Tim’s company. 

“Hi, Raylan,” he said, glancing from Tim to Tim’s coworker. 

“Jeff,” Raylan nodded. “Sorry to interrupt...” he waved a hand, his powers of observation failing him. _Date night_ wasn’t a term he thought Tim would appreciate. 

“Theme porn night,” Jeff yawned, sitting up and throwing Tim a bemused half-smile. “Did they ever find Nemo?”

“No, the poor girl had to finish herself off.”

Jeff snorted in appreciation; he liked knowing when he’d successfully tapped into Tim’s more juvenile sense of humor. 

“You two deserve each other,” Raylan said, observing the two. 

Tim felt himself bristle at that, but covered it with a blank expression and a flat, “How dare you,” in Jeff’s defense. “He is a decent human being.” It made Jeff smile, but not laugh.

“Much as I find you flirtin’ more entertaining than a car crash,” Raylan said, “I really do need to bend your ear.”

“Rip it right off,” Tim hummed, gesturing for Raylan to take a seat.

“Beer?” Tim offered, flipping on more lights. “Or coffee?” He saw Jeff disappear toward the bedroom and close the door. Moments later, Tim heard the shower running. It was still early in the evening. Although Jeff had come over with the promise of skipping his late shift, Tim wondered if he saw in Raylan the futility of making plans with Tim.

“Coffee,” Raylan answered. “May prove more prudent.”

“You sure?” Tim mumbled as he crossed into the kitchen space. It was separated from the living room by a small bar area. “Because begging for backup up with a gun on your hip, another down your pants, and no badge to speak of, one might get the impression that whatever you’re doing, you might as well be drunk.”

“I am not begging,” Raylan corrected, settling in on one side of the small couch. It was warm from either Tim or Jeff’s presence. He stopped, and lobbed Tim a curious look. “You guys were just watching--right?”

“Completely dressed and half-asleep,” Tim pretended to give the notion some consideration, “No, Raylan, we didn’t fuck on the couch. Watch yourself around that coffee table, though.”

Raylan smirked and prodded with the toe of his boot at an bowl of popcorn resting on the floor. Two empty beer bottles rolled and clinked in the bowl atop the leftover kernels--the remnants of a quiet date night. “A regular love nest,” Raylan observed. He had to smother his genuine smile at the homeliness of the scene; necessity brought him to Tim’s door, and there was still the matter of drawing him out. “I’m offering you the opportunity to join me.”

“Because the last time bore such fond memories.” As Tim was gathering a filter from a cabinet over the coffee machine, Raylan wasn’t able to see his face as he said it, though his tone suggested he wasn’t in a mood to joke about the matter. As the coffee maker gurgled to life, Tim rounded the counter and joined Raylan in the living room, situating himself on a corner of the coffee table rather than beside Raylan on the couch. Although Raylan had refused a beer, Tim had retrieved one for himself. “So make your pitch,” he said.

Raylan found himself stalling, arguing weakly, “Coffee’s not ready yet.”

“I’ve got a to-go cup I’m willing to part with. Shoot.”

There was more to the patchwork story Raylan had pieced together than he could share with Tim. He didn’t get into the gut feelings and small, inconsequential mentionings that, in his day-job, Raylan knew better than to rest an entire case. After Raylan shared what he knew--consciously leaving Boyd’s name out of his tale--Tim, already put-out by Raylan’s unannounced visit, looked somehow _less_ impressed with the man.

“This is a rescue mission for your goddamn hat,” Tim accused, none too mildly. He pushed off of the couch and ventured into the kitchen, if only to put space between himself and Raylan.

“It’s intelligence gathering,” Raylan insisted. 

“Where is the _intelligence_ in what you’ve just told me?” 

Raylan smothered his face with both hands a moment, not equipped to deal with Tim’s special brand of inquisition, no matter how deserved. “ _These are the guys, Tim._ You and I know for a fact that there were at least two other conspirators at Clemens’ place and on that mountain.”

“ _I_ know that,” Tim corrected. “Because you weren’t up for shit. Jesus, Raylan. We killed two of ‘em.” He crossed back into the living room, thinking better of having the conversation at such high volumes. “I know you typically like your murders to go in _sprees,_ but Christ almighty. Give it a rest.”

“I just thought I’d ask, Tim,” Raylan snapped. “And not for nothing, neither. You’re a professional.”

Upon realizing they weren’t alone in the living room, both men took care to dampen their fiery tempers.

Showered, dressed, and with a backpack slung over one shoulder, Jeff appeared ready to take his leave of Tim’s apartment. The bag--and with it, the promise of a shared night together--had never been opened. Jeff cleared his throat. “Uh,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt. Please--continue. I’ll see ya, Tim.” 

“Raylan has some madcap plan to see the safe return of his hat,” Tim said, loudly and as though he’d been goaded into it. Both men eyed him curiously. 

Jeff smiled a little, then ducked his head. It was a crude sort of invitation, meant to postpone his departure. “I’ve gotta see this fucking hat.” He hung back, not quite rounding the couch. Tim set down his beer and very deliberately extended his hand to Jeff. 

He wrapped his long fingers around the man’s wrist and gave it a gentle tug--a tentative welcome, really, into the space from which he’d previously kept Jeff separate. Jeff sat, wearing a muddled expression that Tim didn’t look for; instead, Tim’s eyes were caught between Raylan and his beer. He wondered which was really worse for him, right now.

After Jeff made himself comfortable, Tim’s hand was off him and on his beer and in an instant, the lip of the bottle was slick on Tim’s mouth.

Raylan watched the subtle interplay and did not for one second misconstrue its meaning. He’d learned the same dance moves with Winona; Tim was making reparations for something. _Lack of communication_ had always been Raylan’s crime, and it did not seem a great stretch to count Tim among such offenders. He couldn’t help but smile, though, at the blush clawing up Tim’s neck. 

Something about the sight made Raylan resolve to keep matters neat and clean. He hadn’t really planned on sharing _all_ the dirty details, anyway--he wanted Tim along, after all. “Tim, listen. I’ve... got a guy who would go in for us, stir up conversation.”

Tim stared hard at Raylan for a moment. Raylan continued, “He’s out in my car. The only--I _promise you,_ Tim--the only capacity we’re going in as is backup.”

“In case Boyd fucking Crowder gets made,” Tim surmised, leaving his seat to cross the room and peer out of the window. Sure enough, in Raylan’s car, a familiar figure sat patiently in the front passenger seat. “You couldn’t leave him out a couple blocks?” Tim snapped. “I don’t want him knowing where I live, pulling some soliciting for Jesus bullshit on my front steps.” 

Raylan--wisely--said nothing. He watched until Tim’s posture eased and was _less_ suggestive of homicidal rage. 

“Last week, Boyd had Ava tell ‘em if they came ‘round to Johnny’s bar tonight she’d fry up some chicken.” Raylan explained, at least having the decency to be embarrassed by his simplistic planning. “It’s, uh, a pretty good bet they’ll be there.”

Tim stared at the floor for a moment, moving his head in small, disbelieving shakes. When he glanced up to address Raylan, it looked to Raylan now that he hadn’t slept in days. His face was awash with anxiety, as evidenced by tight lines at his mouth and heavily-lidded eyes. “If Crowder wanted to do you and me a favor, he could just give us their names.” Tim wet his lips and continued, “He doesn’t, that’s not what this is, _and you shouldn’t fucking go._ ”

Jeff seemed to be actively shrinking in his seat, and Raylan took a moment to consider that a small win for Tim and the _poor communication_ crowd. He didn’t suppose Jeff would bring the matter up again. 

“I ain’t touched in the head, Tim.” Raylan said curtly. “ _I get it._ This ain’t a hole-in-one by any measure. Nearly three months after the fact, we should take what we get. Maybe it’s because you haven’t been doing this as long as I have, but sometimes you have to slog through shit to get results.”

“Doing this a year with you, though,” Tim hummed, “Is about as shitty as it gets.”

For Raylan, it was as though floodgates had broken, but all the waters had dried up. It was an emotional letdown, a desert where there might have been an ocean. Raylan felt shockingly empty. He stood from his seat on the couch. 

“ _Thanks._ ” He ran a hand through his hair angrily. “I needed a reminder to feel guilty.”

He didn’t say any more than that--either out of habit or for Jeff’s benefit--but he didn’t need to. Some twist in Raylan’s lips, or some harshness in his gaze relayed to Tim how little he’d made Raylan feel, standing tall but hatless in his living room. “I’m just giving you shit,” Tim said, feeling a little flattened and scraped, himself.

Raylan wanted to tell Tim that over the past two months, his jokes weren’t jokes anymore--there was nothing funny in the insults and blatant anger that burned through all his flat, dismissive tones, half-quirked smiles, and eye-rolling. Every time he felt the words forming in his mouth, however, a profound sense of guilt overtook him. No matter how false the smile on Tim’s face, Raylan couldn’t bring himself to wipe it off. 

Raylan remembered how it wasn’t always like this, and briefly his mind took him back when he first ventured back into Kentucky, led like a disobedient dog with a crumpled transfer form in hand. 

In an empty office space lit with little else than the odd desk lamp, Raylan saw visages of the team he’d be working with: there was Rachel’s space, outfitted with reminders of the family she didn’t see as often as she’d like because her work took precedence. He saw an empty desk--his own--as a clean slate, something he hoped not to sully too fast or too badly. Then, he saw the war medal and photographs opposite Tim’s desk, the Army Rangers mug overflowing with pens and an impressive paperclip chain--all before he’d first met Tim, an incredibly young kid, _a young professional_ who’d traded one career for another faster than most men could settle into their first. 

Raylan quickly found him easy to work with, difficult to pin down, and impossible to lie to. He’d always have the last word as surely as though he’d stolen it. He didn’t smile often, but he grinned a lot, as if perpetually amused by everything going on around him. He was smart, almost surprisingly so, and seemingly in direct contradiction to the tired, slow drawl and youthful good looks. 

It was only later that Raylan saw in Tim someone who did not hesitate drawing on a young girl swinging a handgun from potential victim to potential victim, take only the necessary shot, or willingly play ball with the idiots over in SOG who would sometimes clap Tim on the back and try to force the nickname “Killer”--never mind the tiny twist of a frown Tim sported whenever they did. This, just as surely as he saw a man who would finish Raylan’s cold coffee hours into a stakeout and not grimace at the taste. Outside of work, Raylan never saw Tim without a beer in hand, held close, like he thought someone might take it from him.

More and more, Raylan was seeing and hearing things from Tim he couldn’t jell with his earlier impressions. Forcing smiles rather than cracking grins, letting his mouth run away from him and into trouble... doing stupid things--like Jeff, to some degree, though Raylan knew his was the last place to say so. If it was the result of stress over recent events or simply the progression of Tim’s path back from the war, Raylan didn’t know. 

He didn’t _want_ to know. It was just one more thing Tim seemed to be taking a backseat to, and Raylan...

Raylan’s pride was ruined. What happened to Tim hadn’t occured in a vacuum and while he felt immeasurable guilt there was something else, too, clinging to Raylan’s very being like a sick scent hugs wool. 

Shame was too simple. Fault wasn’t enough. 

It was something, instead, akin to responsibility, if only in Raylan’s inability to grasp it. Raylan was an expert in holding others responsible for their deeds; he was less equipped in mastering the effort himself. 

Raylan’s eyes skirted over Tim’s beer, the tired expression on his face, and the awkwardly sat guest in his home. More facets of the young man’s life Raylan couldn’t have any impact on, any control over. _I’m still stuffed in that trunk,_ Raylan figured.

“Forget it,” Raylan said. Then, knowing his lie would be perceived, he added: “I know you are.”

Tim took another swig of his beer, clearly frustrated. 

“You’re really not going to listen to reason, are you?”

Raylan shrugged, arms out. _Do I ever?_

Tim rubbed absently at his elbow again. Jeff leveled his eyes expectantly at him, but Tim turned and took another drink from his beer, instead, before venturing again into the kitchen. The glass bottle clanked against its brothers in the small recycling bin kept under the sink, because Tim was nothing if not a conscientious drunk. Both hands free and set on the kitchen counter, Tim was stripped from his distractions and forced to make a decision. 

“Take your fucking to-go cup,” Tim said, sloppily pouring coffee into a silver travel mug emblazoned with the marshal’s office logo. Some splashed onto his hand, but Tim hardly gave it a second’s notice. He pulled another one from the cabinet--an Army-issue version--and finished off the coffee pot. “ _Fuckin’ take two._ I’ll be down in two minutes. Tell Crowder to sit in back.”

Raylan took a cautious step out of the living area. “You’re coming?”

“Did you not just ask me to?” Tim snapped, displaying the attitude Raylan realized he’d be trapped with in a car for some hours. 

Tim extended both coffee containers like filling them up had been some great chore. 

“Maybe work on your acceptance speeches,” Raylan grumbled, though not unkindly. He took up the drinks and his coat quietly and without a word to Jeff. He figured that’s what Tim’s two minutes were for. 

He was halfway out the door when he heard Tim speak in an entirely more gentle and sorry tone. “I gotta go,” he said. “Will you stay?” 

Raylan was just out of earshot and did not hear Jeff’s reply. 

Raylan next saw Tim descending the stairs to his second story apartment. He was still in the process of drawing on a winter coat over his open plaid shirt. He’d left the ankle boot inside, trading it for a pair of sneakers. 

It struck Raylan, then, that Tim’s army issue boots were stored somewhere in a dank evidence locker. The thought burned hot in his veins. Raylan turned around in the driver’s seat of his town car and snapped at Boyd--”Keep your fucking mouth shut, you got me? Not one fucking word out of turn to him.”--for the hell of it.

Sliding into the recently vacated front seat, Tim secured his handgun to his belt holster, then rested a rifle bag across his lap. It was shorter than the one he had at the office, but Raylan didn’t doubt its contents were just as deadly. 

“Evening,” Boyd greeted sweetly, just to piss Raylan off. 

“Boyd,” Raylan kept his cool, though he suspected the rest of the ride would see him grinding his teeth. “We agreed.”

“ _You threatened,_ ” Boyd corrected. Apparently the backseat afforded him some undue bravery. 

“In my car, that’s what’s known as an agreement. Shut the fuck up.”

“Drive, please,” Tim ordered, his temper battered into a pulpy excuse for what it had been in his apartment. Raylan did as directed, but quietly wondered what Jeff had said to so smother Tim’s attitude. He had no more harsh glares or snappy insults for Raylan, here. Perhaps it was the change in location and audience; out late on a December night, driving to Harlan County, Kentucky with Boyd Crowder sitting pretty in the backseat of his car, Raylan didn’t need another opponent.

Although he’d originally said it in a kind of goading manner, Raylan hadn’t been wrong--Tim was a professional. 

When Tim eventually spoke, his tone was cool and relaxed. “I hope you weren’t skimping on details back there for my benefit.”

“Unfortunately, you heard my greatest hits. I’ve got some B-Side intel, but it’s mostly just noise.”

“Good commitment to that metaphor,” Tim said, already regretting his decision to keep Raylan from running head first and _alone_ into this mess. “Really. I’m very impressed. In any case, I might have a detail or two to share.” 

Raylan met Tim with a curious frown, and Tim explained: “You may recall I’ve been on desk-duty for the past two months. The hell do you think I’m doing with all that free time, huh? I made some calls.”

Raylan studied Tim for a moment, sighed, and stared down the long road ahead of them. “I didn’t convince you of anything you weren’t already aware of, did I?”

“No,” Tim answered with the barest of grins. He took up one of the coffees and took a long sip. “Not even close.” 

“And you insist on giving me a hard time, _why_ exactly?”

“It’s fun.” 

“All right, Miss Marple. Impress me.”

“Thrilled to, Nancy Drew.” Tim returned the coffee to its holder. “Wynn Duffy,” he said, “Is the object in our sights, though closer mine than yours.”

“Ah,” Raylan said after a moment. It was a name that had been rolling around in his consciousness for a while, but Raylan had not once voiced it. The idea made better sense now that someone had spoken the name confidently, though Raylan wasn’t usually one to leap onto bandwagons. Rather, he’d saunter longside one until the truth was borne out. “You know, I was thinking that--”

Tim issued his fellow marshal a flat look. Boyd chuckled lowly from the back seat, and Raylan swept a hand over his hair distractedly, wishing for his hat. “I really should have just asked you, huh?”

“Always,” Tim assured. “Duffy and, more to the point, the broader Dixie Mafia, is what we’re looking at here. To confirm your suspicions, yes, this was contracted work. These guys float in and out of the Dixie Mafia, which is why I haven’t had any luck getting names.”

Raylan drove quietly for a time before finally betraying his doubts. “I just don’t see Wynn Duffy calling that hit,” he said, all the while knowing he couldn’t possibly put the strange, antagonistic relationship he had with the man into words without sounding like a raving lunatic. _He may have killed my ex-wife’s ex-husband and I very nearly shot him in the head and he threatened to ride me like a teaser pony but we sort of laughed about it later?_ Raylan found another means of sounding out of his mind, however, when he offered pleasantly, “He’s gay, you know.”

Tim slid an impassive expression clear across the width of the car before landing it squarely on Raylan. “So, what? Solidarity among fags?” 

Again, Boyd chuckled. Raylan’s fast--and lackluster--response was to tell him to shut up. 

Tim sighed and added, “If it consols you any, I don’t think he called it, either. You see this kind of thing in gangs and shit all over--the place.” Tim was thinking Afghanistan, but couldn’t in good conscience place what a few criminals had done to him and Raylan in equal rank with what insurgent forces did to his men on patrol. Furthermore, as Raylan had taken pains to remind him--Kentucky wasn’t a warzone. 

Tim wet his lips and continued, “You get enough guys--nothing special, just bodies--and you can stand to lose a few. Dixie Mafia has to kind of money to play ‘Survivor,’ anyway. Problem is, someone wants to stand out, figures he can impress the higher-ups with some unexpected good fortune, and hell, he’s got the manpower to pull it off...” Tim wasn’t addressing anyone in particular; he was simply giving voice to the ideas that had been knocking around in his head for the past two and a half months. After sharing his own half-baked notions, Raylan seemed like an easy audience. 

Tim spoke directly to his fellow Marshal, next. “You weren’t far off suspecting Crowder.”

Boyd curled forward, crowding into the space between Tim and Raylan. “Excuse me?”

“Your... experience,” Tim said, feeling generous. “With explosives. You just pick that up on a lark?”

“Mining and the army,” Boyd said, detecting the question despite the younger man’s flippant tone.

“Mmhm, and if you ran a criminal organization--I mean, like, a good one, one you could really be proud to routinely commit felonies for--wouldn’t you want the nation’s best and brightest? Hell, maybe dip into those tax credits companies get for hiring veterans.” Tim fell quiet for a moment, not liking the tone of his own voice. He licked his lips again and when he next spoke, it was in the low drawl that sounded at once bored and disinterested. “It’s not some grand fucking conspiracy. It’s--like I said. Bodies.” 

Raylan, who had been following along to the entire tirade without a word, couldn’t help himself. “Woz?” he asked carefully.

Slowly, Tim nodded. “He told me he met with some guys--maybe in the same line of work, maybe not. But they turned him away, said he was too recognizable with the,” Tim gestured to the side of his head, “scaring.” 

Raylan wrinkled his nose. “You’d think criminal security would be equal opportunity employment.” 

“Our next cause célèbre,” Tim remarked. “You can bet your ass I’ll get that into this month’s VA newsletter. Get some wristbands to raise awareness, or one of those fuckin’ ribbons.” Trying for too many jokes gave away Tim’s honest discomfort with the topic, and Raylan moved on. 

“Anyway.”

Raylan did not do this especially well.

“Where are they headed?” Tim asked, glancing out of the window. “To give you an opportunity to contribute to the conversation.”

“Johnny’s bar,” Boyd answered, leaning back.

“You gonna ask for ID?” Tim deadpanned. “Crack this whole thing w _iii_ de open?”

Boyd returned his bone-dry expression. “Well, Deputy, I’m going to be a warm, friendly host. First, I’ll serve these men some exquisite fried chicken, cooked up special by my lovely fiancé. Then, we’ll all become lifelong friends over a bottle of bourbon. Finally, I’ll get them talking, and _do your job for you._ ” Boyd dropped the cheerful cadence to his voice with such expert precision that even Raylan couldn’t ignore the chill that spread icily down his back. Boyd was a scary fucker when he wanted to be. 

Tim remained stone-faced; he could play that game, too. “Can’t wait to see it.” 

They made their way out of Lexington and drove until there were trees as tall as the streetlights, and then until there were no streetlights. Raylan kept the radio on low until, like a supernatural omen warning of their arrival into Harlan County, the signal grew weaker. Soon, only sociopaths parading as preachers graced the airwaves, all with foreboding tales about devils cast to walk the earth, adulterers compromising the nation’s moral code, and sodomizers destroying the very fabric of America. 

“Hey,” Tim said, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. “We’re on the radio.” 

Raylan forced the vitriol off and committed his small company to silence. 

Tim turned around in his seat. 

“What are you getting out of this?” Tim asked of Boyd, if only to rile Raylan. He seemed to enjoy that, _finally_ , Boyd Crowder had settled into a peaceful silence. “Raylan giving you a pass on your next great Oxy run? Or the next charred meth cooker is chalked up to simple fortuity?”

Staring straight at the back of Raylan’s head, Boyd answered tersely, “Loathe as he is to accept it, I consider Raylan a friend. I don’t appreciate injustices leveled at my friends.” His dark, shining eyes flicked onto Tim for a moment. “Or friends of friends, as the case may be.”

“Fighting for my honor, Crowder?” Tim drawled. “I’m touched.”

Raylan’s knuckles tightened around the wheel as he watched Tim’s face lock into steely nothingness. He could joke and deflect Boyd’s comments, but the humiliation he felt having to do so was bone-deep. 

“Shut the fuck up, Boyd,” Raylan ordered darkly. “You’ll have time enough to run your mouth, later.” 

\- 

The trio sat quietly in the car, observing the lot next to Johnny’s bar. Save for Johnny and Boyd’s respective trucks, the lot was empty. 

“Turn around,” Tim said. “Go back to that diner and park.” 

Raylan heaved a sigh. He and Tim had come to the same conclusion--that they should stash Raylan’s car and set up in Boyd’s truck--but the idea of being left without the option to make a hasty escape unnerved Raylan. 

Tim shrugged. “How many Lincoln town cars you think come through Harlan County?”

“Just yours,” Boyd answered needlessly. “ _A lot._ ”

The short retreat and brisk walk back to the bar did nothing to raise spirits or inspire confidence in the men. Raylan was further dismayed to find that the heat in Boyd’s truck didn’t work properly. 

“We’re going to fucking freeze,” he grumbled, snatching the worn blanket Boyd offered. Tim seemed content to only zip his jacket.

As agreed, Boyd would situate himself near the only window angled toward Raylan and Tim’s position, providing them with the necessary visual inside the bar. At Tim’s insistence, when the men arrived, Boyd would place a cell call to Raylan, who would, in turn, silence his own phone. 

“Like those Walkie-Talkies,” Boyd grinned a little at Raylan, remembering the brick-like devices they’d pilfered from one of the offices near the old mine. “When we were kids.”

Raylan only continued to twist and unfurl the blanket. “Well, you still can’t sing, so don’t start.” 

Boyd grinned broadly at that. He closed the driver’s seat door on Raylan and clapped the hood of the truck twice in passing. It was like he’d waved a checkered flag before the two Marshals’ eyes, but the race was this: hurry up and wait.

At at this, Tim was an expert. He’d moved his handgun into the front pocket of his large winter coat, although the disassembled short rifle still rested in the bag across Tim’s lap. He studied the area again before his eyes rested on the bar window. They were far away enough so that the car wasn’t hugging the building, but the picture inside was lit and clear. If there was a shot to be made, Tim knew he could take it. 

Raylan was less experienced in the art of quietly waiting. It was really the antithesis of his quick-draw attitude. He wriggled around under the blanket, harshly suspecting it to be infested with bedbugs or some other awful mite that only flourished in the backwoods of Kentucky. 

Tim’s expression twisted into a tight scowl as he stared, really, at nothing. 

“You mad at me for something?” At the flat look Tim gave him, Raylan corrected, “For something other than all the immediate bullshit?”

Tim shifted in his seat, but never once took his eyes off of the bar and his and Raylan’s small window inside. He didn’t believe now was the time to converse when they needed to focus on the task on hand, but the opportunity to speak to Raylan without boundaries--the workplace, Jeff’s presence--was too great. And only one question sprang to Tim’s mind.

“Would you have kept quiet about what happened,” Tim began slowly, deliberately, “If I had explicitly asked you to?”

“You told Art yourself, Tim,” Raylan said, somewhat defensively because he did feel touched by guilt in this respect. 

“Because I thought you were gonna do it anyway,” Tim returned. His voice was quiet and without even a breath of anger or accusation. He drew a hand over his tired face, finally--albeit only briefly--cutting off his line of sight. 

Raylan felt his gut twist like it had way back in October, during the awful car ride he shared with Tim and Art. Tim was about to drop a bomb. “What’s this about, man?”

“Jeff doesn’t know,” Tim said, and seemed to sag after the words escaped him, like they had occupied a physical space inside his chest. “It’s been easier that way. If I hadn’t said shit... Rachel wouldn’t feel like she has to hold my hand. Vasquez wouldn’t be doing me favors. Me and Art wouldn’t,” Tim shook his head, unable to capture what it was about his relationship with Art that truly upset him. He settled uneasily on, _“We wouldn’t be so angry with each other,”_ but couldn’t say the words aloud.

“Whether or not either of us said anything,” Raylan began, quietly and quickly forging the argument he thought Tim would never draw from him, “It wouldn’t be blissful ignorance all around. Jesus, Tim. You were wrecked. We both were.”

“Anybody call you a pussy for coming out of all that with a knot on your head, all shaken up?”

“No,” Raylan answered, remembering only well-wishers.

“So maybe ignorance has more purchasing power than you think.” Tim’s argument finally had some bite in it, but the sniper seemed immediately chastened after hearing his voice betray him. Falling back into his low, tired drawl, Tim amended: “No one wants to know what’s going on in your head, anyway. Not really. People wanna care, but they don’t wanna know.”

It was an old lesson--perhaps older than Tim’s time since the military. Raylan felt a twinge of familiarity upon hearing Tim’s easy ability to trade in the twin terms of ignorance and the kind of _caring_ only the ignorant provided. It was how he’d always felt as a child when he ran off to escape Arlo--if only temporarily. A neighbor might provide a meal or a place to stay for a night, and _always_ a kind word was spared for his plight, but nothing was ever done. No exceeding measures were ever met. 

And nothing ever changed, not really. Raylan only ever kept running until it stuck. 

“I think I would have told, anyway,” Raylan said at last. He wasn’t completely convinced he would have, but Tim did not need to cling to what-ifs. 

“You’re just saying that,” Tim jeered, instantly privy to Raylan’s game, but masking his understanding with a slow drawl. “You’re a great liar.”

Raylan shot him a hard look of his own, if only because he was tired of being on the receiving end. “In that case, Tim, I wouldn’t have told a soul. You could be lying to Art, Rachel, Vasquez, everybody. No one would give two shits about you after the cast came off your foot and you’d be all the happier for it.” Raylan downed a gulp of Tim’s now lukewarm coffee. “Nope, you wouldn’t be fucked up at all.”

“No more than usual,” Tim stipulated. “This ain’t a fairytale. Is there any coffee left?”

“It’s cold.”

“That don’t make it lemonade,” Tim said, taking the cup and finishing it off. “Thanks.”

Raylan rattled off a belaboured sigh. “Jesus, would you stop that?”

“I don’t see him, what’s he doing?”

“What? No, you weirdo. Just... _you._ ”

“Oh, I see your point now.” Tim rolled his eyes. 

Ignoring him, Raylan explained, “Stop... thanking me. You thanked me on the mountain, too. No reason for that, neither.”

Tim didn’t even blink. “I didn’t thank you.”

Staring at the filthy dashboard, Raylan sighed, “Yeah, you did. Twice.”

“That doesn’t seem like me,” Tim ventured, despite knowing Raylan wouldn’t play out a joke with him. Tim picked at a patch of frayed fabric in the arm of his seat. “Twice, fine: one, I was glad to be out of that car. Real glad. Two, I was glad you weren’t dead.”

“Glad I wasn’t dead,” Raylan repeated, doubtful. “As in, ‘Thank you, Raylan, for not being dead’?”

“Well I take it back, then. Rude.”

Rather than favor Raylan with it, Tim sent a dark look out the car window, towards the bar. “I still think we should be in back in case Crowder fucks it.”

“Boyd won’t fuck it up,” Raylan said, though his tone was oddly quiet and surprisingly gentle. Then, determined to make Tim see reason, he added slowly: “Tim, even I have my moments of practicality. Worst we’re facing out here is hypothermia. These guys still want us dead.”

“They want _you_ dead, you mean, and I don’t think they can manage it.” Every good sense in Tim’s mind was telling him to quit arguing and admit that Raylan had a point. But such had been Tim’s thinking from the start, and like the pitying looks and concerned glances torpedoing across the office those first few weeks back, he’d soon grown weary of it. 

Raylan patiently reminded Tim, “Twice, they’ve tried to pull something.”

“And twice, they didn’t succeed.” Tim couldn’t seem to help himself. 

“Not for lack of trying,” Raylan mumbled, still eyeing the uninterrupting darkness surrounding Johnny’s bar and the only road leading to it. 

Tim chewed at the inside of his cheek, determined not to continue his childish--and futile--argument. He studied the interior of Boyd Crowder’s truck for a moment before taking up a different approach. “Unless Crowder’s going to flip us, I don’t think they’re going to get the jump.” 

Tim waited to see if Raylan would again hop to Boyd’s defense. He didn’t, so Tim continued, dressing up his curiosity over Raylan’s trust in Boyd in the guise of the matter at hand. “You even listen to him on the way up here? From what I could make out from his hillbilly-Shakespearean fusion, these guys weren’t making inroads here with the heroin trade, anyway. Seems people prefer their mom ‘n pop dope dealers.”

“It does carry a more personal touch,” Raylan agreed. “Buying from someone you played little league with.”

“The coach, right?”

“Shortstop, actually.”

“And an outfielder for pot.”

Raylan smiled at that. Boyd had played outfield. “It’s like you grew up here, yourself,” he said. “Where the hell are you from, anyway?”

Without missing a beat, Tim drawled, “Why, I’ma Georgia peach.”

Raylan very nearly pressed-- _really, where are you from?_ \--but couldn’t imagine Tim would do anything other than continue to jerk him around, so he held his tongue.

“Arkansas,” Tim said, surprising Raylan. “Mom, dad, and the dog are all buried out in West Helena, Arkansas. I’ve got a couple of foster sisters who are now the proud owners of the shitty house I grew up in. I haven’t been back there in eleven years.”

Growing up, Tim was an only child. His parents took in foster kids, but they were usually--and quickly--cycled out, led away from the house by the protective grip of a social worker’s hand. As a little boy, Tim used to wonder why he never got to leave, or why conditions termed unsuitable for someone else’s kids were damn near inescapable for him. 

Tim shared none of these details with Raylan. To further keep his answer contained, he didn’t even bother to correct himself--his sisters weren’t legally his sisters, but they’d kept in touch. Tim knew the idea of a greater family meant the world to them, so he used the term, even if he’d had to go halfway around the world and kill people to discover its meaning for himself.

“The whole Southern United States,” Raylan said with a crooked smile. “Fuck it.”

Tim might have agreed, but, as he offered lightly: “I like New Mexico.”

Raylan made a bemused face. “That’s more Western, right? And--shit, no one _likes_ New Mexico. That’s like saying, _I like meth._ ”

Shrugging, Tim joked, “It’s got that smooth, skin-melting burn.”

Still, Raylan couldn’t fathom it. “Why do you like New Mexico?”

Tim buried his hands deeper into his coat pockets. He preferred silence when he was watching a target, but knew his targets hadn’t yet come into view. More than that, Raylan’s interest seemed genuine. “One weekend off a training exercise between tours, me and some of the guys from my unit went rock climbing there. They picked a state that was supposed to feel like Afghanistan, as if any of us had forgotten that shithole. It didn’t feel like Afghanistan at all. It didn’t feel like anywhere else on this fucking planet.” Tim looked a little embarrassed, having said that. It was the Diablo Canyon in New Mexico, not the Himalayas. And Tim had seen his fair share of fucking mountains in Afghanistan, but there was something special about being on a rock, in a place, with your friends, not being shot at. 

Tim wet his lips. They tasted dry and chapped. His approach of simply _ignoring the cold_ had its flaws. Tim also knew they were pink, which has always been the case for him. Whenever the temperature dropped below 50 degrees, Tim turned into a child on a Hallmark Christmas card: red nose and cheeks, pink lips. “I think I’d like Colorado, too. Once this shit blows over I might, uh, see if there are any openings there.”

Raylan managed not to let his jaw fly open, but he was duly surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Tim confirmed, a little embarrassed, too, for sharing that particular private consideration. “Can’t go right away--too easy to tie it to the Weaver thing.” It was getting easier, Tim realized, to forge such assured flippancy. “My buddy you met--Woz--used to live there until he lost his job, his place... And. Well, he doesn’t need to be in Kentucky.”

Raylan’s brows knitted together. “You’d move clear across the country because your friend needs help paying rent?”  
   
“It’s costly living,” Tim observed. He freed one hand from his coat pocket to scratch along his throat. “I don’t want to stay here,” he admitted.

Raylan nodded along. 

“I’m honestly a little surprised.” Raylan spoke low enough that, if he’d chosen to do so, Tim could have pretended not to hear him and effectively kill the conversation. Raylan fumbled on, “I dunno, I thought staying would be part of your whole... thing.”

“My thing,” Tim echoed flatly. “My lying to myself thing?”

“Your getting over it thing. And I don’t mean that to sound small,” Raylan said, and Tim understood him. He was merely making an effort to speak in the language Tim was using. “Maybe this is the best thing for you,” Raylan conceded, “but I thought you’d stay.”

“Yeah, well. _You_ tell Art, this time.” 

“Aw, hell, Tim...”

“I’m kidding,” Tim reassured. “It’s nothing to do with you. Don’t give yourself so much goddamn credit.” 

Tim spoke with an easy confidence, but Raylan heard something else. He heard creeping doubt and a deeply felt sense of betrayal. If he wasn’t lying outright about being angry with Raylan, still, he was certainly angry with someone. 

“Art’s doing his best,” Raylan said, eyes still glued to the dash. “He knows he’s fucked up.”

Tim checked the time on his phone and stifled a yawn. “He didn’t fuck up.”

“Worse than I did,” Raylan continued. “ _His words._ And because of something he didn’t do, no less. He regrets not trying to help you, Tim.”

 _For fucks sake,_ Tim thought angrily. “There wasn’t anything--”

“ _Trying,_ Tim.”

Raylan was practically pleading with Tim to understand, to accept that Art was angry with himself moreso than angry with Tim. 

But Tim was blindsided by Raylan inserting himself into their conflict; he didn’t like it. It felt like a slight. In a rare showing of petulance, Tim said in a hot huff, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Oh, does that help?” Raylan sneered. He was at a breaking point, himself--he was exhausted from feeling guilty all the time and some part of him resented Tim for that. Tim, who Raylan believed could absolve him but clearly didn’t want to. Tim, who regarded Raylan with some dark, empty expression that reminded Raylan of coal pits and snakeholes. “You can’t make me feel any worse about this than I already do,” Raylan continued, speaking coolly and clearly, as though he was delivering a threat. “If I hadn’t asked you along this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe you’re right and I’d be deader n’ that look you’re giving me. Maybe not. Either way, I regret it. I fucking regret all of it.”

Tim blinked and looked away. “Car.” 

And suddenly, time seemed to curl in on itself and shorten in every direction. One car turned into two, then three, driving in a neat line from the single, empty road. They parked and in a flurry of movement, bodies emerged. Tim counted seven. 

Raylan’s cell rang. He answered it and hit mute in one breath. 

Boyd’s voice filled the car--briefly. “You boys ready?”

Tim was. His rifle sat assembled in his lap. 

\- 

For those first tense moments of cell connection, they heard Ava tell Boyd the chicken was on the bar.

“And your shotgun, Ava?”

“Under the bar.” 

There was the unmistakable sound of movement and people, and then Boyd turned up the charm. 

“Well, hell! Here I thought I was gonna have to eat all this chicken, myself. Have a seat, fellas.”

Raylan and Tim watched through the window and listened via cell phone to idle conversation over chicken. Boyd was away from the phone, but the two Marshals made out something about bourbon. 

Then, a voice clear as a bell but recognizable to none said, “Cut the shit, Crowder.”

“You can call me Boyd. I’m sorry, but I seem to have forgotten _your_ name.”

“Carl.”

“Jesus, Carl, do you take me for an asshole? I meant your last name.”

The man sounded ready to answer when--nothing. Raylan tapped his cell phone screen to life. They’d lost the connection. 

“Shit!” 

“Call him back!” 

When Raylan hesitated, Tim started to roll down the passenger side window. He didn’t need to; the gunshot that rang out could have been heard well over a mile away. Tim clamoured out of the car immediately, despite Raylan’s hissing at him to calm down. 

“It was a warning shot!” Raylan snapped, pointing just left of the window. “It went through the wall, Tim!” 

Tim was standing between the vehicle and the building, rifle raised and finger on the trigger. He took a few cautious steps back and joined Raylan back near Boyd’s truck. “We going in or what?”

Raylan stared straight at the window where they could see multiple figures moving. “Give him a minute, see if he can’t talk himself out of this.”

“Out of a bullet?” Tim stepped closer to the truck and set his rifle in the crevice formed between the door and the frame. In no time at all, he took aim into the window. “I got one.”

“ _You got one?_ Jesus, Tim, we’re not looking to get a good spread.”

“I got one _waving around a glock._ ” 

“Give Boyd time,” Raylan insisted.

They listened and heard indiscriminate yelling cut through the cold night air. “Let’s go in,” Tim pressured. “There’s this weird fucking thing about a warning shot. It precedes intentional shots.”

“Chances are they’re all packing.”

“So are we. _Raylan,_ ” A visible, whisp of breath escaped between Tim’s chapped and pink lips. “What are we doing here if not this?”

“I didn’t bring you here for that,” Raylan said forcefully, chancing a look at Tim. He saw a desperate man with a steady grip. Raylan turned away and focused again on the window. “I’ve got cameras set up in there,” he said. “We’ll have their faces.”

Tim blinked. He hadn’t heard a word about cameras. Part of him didn’t believe it--namely, the part that spat, “I want their heads.”

“We go in there, someone’s going to get hit. Could be Ava.” 

Tim wanted to shout that _what did it matter_ if they shot Ava, shot Boyd, turned over Johnny’s wheelchair and made their way into the parking lot for himself and Raylan? He wanted to belittle Raylan for driving three hours to Harlan and never once permitting discussion of a contingency plan. He wanted to kick himself for not insisting on one, earlier.

Then, the light through the window splintered and changed. 

“They’re moving,” Tim said, heading for the front of the building. 

Raylan sprinted after him, hissing, “Goddamnit, Tim!” 

They lost sight of the men as they crossed through the bar. By the time they exited through the front doors, they had donned black masks.

“Recognize anyone?” Raylan asked dryly. In the dark, if they’d hugged the building they might not have been seen. But that wasn’t Tim’s concern. 

“I am going to fucking shoot somebody, Raylan. _Keep talkin’._ ” 

The men backed out of the building and crossed the parking lot to their cars, all the while keeping Boyd-- _and Ava_ \--in tow with a pistol pressed against his skull. Raylan noticed one of the men had Ava’s sawed-off shotgun in hand, waving it like a club when he caught sight of Tim and Raylan. 

Time seemed to stop. 

The group of seven--plus Boyd and Ava--stood awkwardly in the parking lot. The open bar door afforded the space more light, and Tim stepped into it first. He held his rifle steady. He singled out one of the few that appeared unarmed and chose to aim at him between the eyes, if only to see if he might break rank and cause the group to scatter. 

He didn’t.

No words were exchanged between the group of men and the pair of Marshals. 

It was suggestive of an understanding, though Raylan reasoned neither side was especially eager for a shoot-out. It was understood that Boyd and Ava were their cover, and so long as Tim or Raylan didn’t advance any further, the two civilians wouldn’t be hurt. When they’d crossed the length of the parking lot, the men broke off into pairs and made for their respective vehicles. 

“They’re walking away,” Tim hissed, mostly to himself. Raylan heard and found himself praying to whatever higher power that might have sway over Tim that Tim’s stilled trigger finger didn’t waver. 

One by one, the cars drove off until the last--and specifically, black-mask-number-three in the last car, gun still trained on its target--sped off. 

When Tim lowered his rifle, he was the last to do so. “And now they’re speeding.” 

Tim watched as tail lights disappeared into the darkened crevices of Harlan County. For all the chatter that was going on around him--Raylan was demanding details from Boyd after their cell phone trick had failed--Tim didn’t hear a thing. His ears were ringing as he stared dumbly down the empty road. 

_What the fuck was that?_ Tim wanted to scream, if only to compete with the ringing. _What a colossal fuck-up!_

He looked around at the others--Ava was shaken up and Raylan had given her his jacket. Tim wondered if they hadn’t all gone inside because Raylan knew Tim wouldn’t follow. 

He started to take in bits of information--things had gone off the rails because the men thought it was a meeting to discuss cocaine in Harlan. When the guns came out, it was clear they were making their claim. 

Knowing that it was Boyd Crowder’s fuck up didn’t help assuage Tim’s anger.

Trying to rebuild his worth, Boyd said he got a look at the men, but not all were pictured in the book Raylan composed. Ava offered to take a look, herself. 

“We need names,” Tim croaked, finding his voice. 

“With some photos, I think I can ask around, get a few.” It was said with the kind of confidence Raylan might have in the matter, but Boyd was the one speaking and Tim didn’t know what to make of that. 

Ever the skeptic, Tim may have joked that if Boyd could manage that, Tim would buy him a steak dinner. 

But Tim couldn’t be sure that he’d been heard, or even if he’d spoken at all. He’d turned away and started on the short walk to the convenience store and Raylan’s car. 

Tim didn’t remember the drive, except that he didn’t sleep through it. He even drove part way, and watched Harlan County unfold before him. It was a quiet night and near pitch-dark, save for the swollen moon and the headlights bleaching the broken road to Lexington.

Although Tim would swear not remembering he’d said it, Raylan heard one damning review from his fellow Marshal. 

_“I don’t know what I expected.”_

-

“Jeff’s car is gone,” Raylan observed, not intending to say so aloud. He cringed upon realizing he’d done just that. “Sorry,” he said, speaking broadly. Tim looked at him, too tired to keep up a grudge. Three hours seemed long enough. 

“I said all that shit to Art last week...” he huffed out a sorry, humourless laugh. “We’re not even fucking regularly. And we were watching _Game of Thrones_.”

“Didn’t know Kentucky was so progressive,” Raylan mused, trying to make light of Tim’s self deprecating explanation. “Did I miss the ceremony?”

The quirk of Tim’s brows showed he at least respected the composition of the joke, if not its suggestion. “You’re just in time for the divorce,” he said.

Raylan looked sorry again, but didn’t say so, believing Tim would take it literally. _People don’t really want to know._ The words echoed back into Raylan’s mind, and he tried to think about how they didn’t apply here, if only because of how unfair that would be to Tim. 

“Ah well,” Tim said, climbing out of Raylan’s car. “I’d leave me, too.” 

Watching Tim, Raylan’s mind turned to Winona and he felt compelled to keep the conversation from ending there. In all good conscience, he could not allow Tim to return to his empty apartment with that single thought bouncing around in his head. “Things are going to quiet down,” Raylan said, though the reason why escaped him. It sounded reassuring, he supposed. 

Tim squinted at him, as if he was too tired to even form a complete expression of either derision or doubt. “How do you figure?”

“They were made. Ain’t likely that they’ll return to Johnny’s bar.” Raylan rubbed a hand against the back of his neck, considering. “Somebody’s gotta have seen these assholes somewhere, though. Longer they’re around, better is our chance to--”

“Put names to faces?” Tim interrupted. “Or vice versa? We got shit all, Raylan.” His face fell into a hard grimace as he turned Raylan’s effort to comfort him on its head. He made it into an ultimatum. “Things quieting down will be the end of this.”

Raylan swept a hand through his hair. All that, and he still had no line on his hat’s whereabouts. “Maybe I’m wrong and they’ll fuck up something spectacular.”

The look on Tim’s face told Raylan that, if--or when--they did, Raylan would be investigating it alone.

“Fingers crossed,” Tim said. He slung his rifle bag over one shoulder and turned away.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim takes a holiday, the Marshals hit a bar, and the OC hits the road.

Come Monday morning, Raylan found himself partnered with Rachel on a bust in the suburbs, while Tim disappeared downtown in search of a suspect’s relation. He returned some hours later with the suspect in tow, destined for lock-up. Both men had matching headaches; Tim took an ill-placed knock to the back of the head that didn’t render him unconscious so much as blindingly furious. A running tackle into a busy street earned Tim his arrest. 

Attempting to make amends for their fruitless weekend investigation, Raylan brought Tim a coffee.

“You all right, there? How many fingers am I holding up?” When Tim didn’t glance away from his phone to accept Raylan’s gesture, Raylan sighed, annoyed. “How many texts do you see?”

“Zero,” Tim said distractedly, sparing Raylan the details. Jeff never answered his apology text from early Saturday morning. Radio silence frustrated Tim, who only increased his efforts in goading a reply.

 _Back. Sorry I missed you._ (Keep things light; don’t prophesize the worst.)

 _Want to come over and give me the silent treatment in person?_ (Impress him with how self-aware you can be!)

 _How about Sunday? I’ll blow you behind a church._ (Vulgar and fun.)

 _Fine, in a pew._ (Fun and desperate.) 

_Blowing the priest instead._ (A misstep, perhaps.)

 _Sorry for ditching you the other night. It wasn’t worth it._ (A simple apology.) 

_Anytime you’d like to spare my pride and reply would be awesome._ (Indignation.)

 _At least tell me to stop being such a pussy._ (Self-loathing, always a crowd pleaser.) 

Tim withheld a sigh as he regulated his phone to a far corner of his desk, then set about his casework. He wanted desperately to ask Raylan about his offhand mention of cameras in Johnny Crowder’s bar--in part, to gauge whether or not Raylan had been lying and seeking only to satiate Tim’s desire to take action. But Art was within earshot, and Tim half-heartedly figured Raylan would have told him if anything had come to light on the matter--hell, Raylan would have been bursting to tell him, to prove their escapade had not been an ill-planned, complete waste of time. If it was a bust, he’d try and serve up something else--a plump piece of intel on another case, for instance--like a cat presenting its owner with a grotesque gift. 

_Shit,_ Tim realized belatedly. _That’s what the coffee was for._

Within a few minutes, he put Raylan out of his mind and was completely absorbed in tracing the movements of a fugitive last seen in Somerset, Kentucky. 

Raylan, conversely, could not excuse his failures so easily. He found himself staring, unable to apply the same concentration with his own work. Tim didn’t get it, Raylan thought to himself. He didn’t realize how he hadn’t just _thrown_ Raylan from his game, but severed the man from the reigns.

It was selfish, but Raylan knew the words churning around in his gut were simple, direct. _I’ve never fucked up this bad._

Just as surely as Raylan knew what he longed to admit, he could gauge Tim’s response: sardonic, dismissive, even-keeled--but also harsh and cut-throat. 

_Glad to have been your first._

The imagined conversation so consumed Raylan’s thoughts, sometimes, that it was like a living nightmare. He envisioned speaking his confession aloud and Tim cutting him down. 

Driving himself to a state of absurd and manufactured frustration, Raylan swore aloud. Tim raised an eyebrow. 

“Computer froze,” Raylan lied, the words seeping out between his teeth a little too angrily. His mood nonetheless calmed, he found, having said _something_ to Tim. 

For the first time, Raylan thought about Tim’s mention of Colorado, of distance, time, _tragedy, comedy, speed_ \--Raylan didn’t know the formula in Tim’s head, but fleeing Kentucky and his problems and their solutions--all of it, gone, in one fell swoop?

Raylan thought, _Maybe that ain’t such a bad idea._

It had worked (more or less) for Raylan--at least, for twenty years. 

When Tim’s phone finally hummed to life and issued Jeff’s reply, Tim all but bolted from his desk. 

“Little early for lunch,” Art observed. He was sat at Rachel’s desk, confirming case details with Raylan. Rachel, hearing activity on one of her more high profile cases, disappeared back into the field and left the paperwork for their earlier arrest with Raylan to complete. 

“Cultural holiday,” Tim said dryly while pulling on his coat. “Brunch. The meal of my people.” 

\- 

Jeff asked to meet at Stella’s Kentucky Deli which, Tim was a little peeved to note, had separate dinner, lunch, and _brunch_ menus. Everything was free-range and most items on the menu were accompanied by any level of asterix, indicating vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, soy, the scientific name of each type of wheat used to make the 7-grain bread, or a photo essay describing the journey of a single cheese curd into the house salad. In short, it wasn’t the kind of place Tim found himself at 11am on a Monday morning. 

But he walked through the doors with purpose, and very quickly sought out the booth Jeff had chosen. 

Tim approached the table. “Do you have a dog?”

Surprised, Jeff glanced up from his phone. “Huh?”

“I hit a dog going into work this morning. Figure you’ve gotta be pissed at me for something.”

Jeff only stared, bewildered. “You really hit a dog?”

Tim frowned. “No,” he said, very quickly seeing that his joke wasn’t meeting a receptive audience. _Or I told it wrong,_ Tim mused. _Or I just have one of those dog-killing faces._

“This was supposed to go over better. Or, at all.” Tim slid into the unoccupied side of the booth and snatched a paper napkin from a shiny silver dispenser. Under the table, he worried the thing in his hands. “Missed you this past weekend.”

“Sorry about that. There was--stuff. Things I had to do.”

“Stuff and things,” Tim observed, jokingly solemn. “Beats my weekend by a mile. I mainlined the _Tremors_ movies.” Jeff smiled at that, and then gave an outright bark of laughter when Tim added hesitantly, “... _And_ the TV show.”

Tim smiled too, watching Jeff. 

“So,” he said, expectant. 

“Uh--sorry. I need a moment,” Jeff said weakly. 

“You want I should go?” Tim mumbled, feeling about as incoherent as he sounded. He’d been looking forward to this--to facing head-on whatever Jeff deemed problematic in their situation. Tim was curious; he wanted to know--plainly--what he’d done wrong. “Give you a minute to go over your notes?”

Jeff lost a hand to his errant curls as he absently scratched a neat line along the side of his head. “I don’t have notes.”

“Then speak to me from the heart,” Tim implored, his tone bone dry. Leaving the twisted napkin in his lap, Tim rested his arms on the table, splaying his hands out as though desperate for whatever answer Jeff was prepared to give him. “Because I think I’m confused.”

“What are you confused about?” Jeff asked, grateful for the distraction. Either he lacked the resolve to say to Tim what he’d intended, or he merely hoped to find an easier way in. 

“Oh,” Tim slid his arms off the table and settled them into his lap, where they found and started in on the napkin again. “Lots of things. Those Glade plug-ins. Owls. You know, how they do all that owl shit with their heads.” The napkin was quickly coming apart in Tim’s hands as he continued, his voice low but sure, “Where I stand, with you.” 

Tim’s eyes settled on a shirt button at Jeff’s throat, then ventured up his tanned neck, unshaven jaw, and finally lingered someplace just east of his eyes. “If we’re done, you can just say so.” 

Jeff shifted, and for a brief second he and Tim locked gazes. “I--I don’t want that, Tim. I just want to clear the air.” 

A waitress arrived and took their orders--Tim hadn’t looked at the menu, but rattled something off that seemed appropriate. He and Jeff accepted glasses of water. 

Jeff took a drink. “You don’t tell me anything.”

“You don’t answer my calls,” Tim pointed out, still a little sore at having to be _that guy_ disappearing into the locker room or hallway to make an empty, one-sided personal call. He felt like Raylan, but with enough sense to keep his business out of the bullpen. “And therein lies the complication.”

“Funny,” Jeff observed mildly. “But I’m serious. You don’t... _tell me things._ About what’s going on, where your head is.”

“Because I like you,” Tim explained, using his straw to dunk a lemon wedge down deep into his glass. There would be no convincing the man otherwise, Tim supposed. It was clear that for as often as he gave Tim his privacy--particularly in conversations with Raylan--he wasn’t blind to the severity of what he excused himself from.

Jeff, who had given the matter some thought, looked unconvinced. “The first day you were...” he grimaced, but ultimately settled with the wording he’d intended, “ _cognizant of my presence,_ you told me you’d killed two people.”

“I didn’t like you so much then,” Tim reasoned, remembering the awkward ride he’d hitched to work the Sunday morning he’d pulled himself from a mental and physical wasteland. Then, like he was extending some sought-after peace offering, he said, “Fine. I’ll tell you about all the people I kill.”

“I’m not angry about it,” Jeff shrugged. He was right not to take Tim’s offer seriously. “Don’t tell me, fine, whatever. Just... know that for the sake of my own dignity, the next time I’m shuffled off so you can talk missing hats and murderers... I’m not going to feel especially inclined to come back.” Jeff looked unsure, and his mind sprang to caveats and conditionals. “Maybe. So much. In this capacity.”

Their waitress returned, meals in hand, and Tim waited until she’d gone before asking tentatively, “And what capacity is this?”

After the words escaped his mouth, Tim frowned at himself, none too proud of feeling like an anxious teenager. 

“By my count, we’ve watched three Jude Law movies, so... romantic?” Jeff half-smiled, maybe picking up on Tim’s nerves, maybe feeling a little immature himself.

“You picked those movies,” Tim pointed out, scoring a kind of childish vindication. 

“Yeah, I did,” Jeff said, a little sorrowfully.

Tim conceded, “ _Road to Perdition_ was good.”

His eyes crinkled as if they were caught up in a smile, but none tugged at Tim’s lips.

Jeff sighed deeply, and it took Tim aback. It took him out of the small booth Jeff had chosen, _well out_ of the restaurant and Lexington and Kentucky--all of it, in its entirety. For the barest of seconds, Tim felt as though he’d been transported back to Afghanistan, and some unseen sniper had sent a screaming wave of shots whizzing past by his ear. Jeff’s sigh was that mass of unexpected firepower, and it elevated the situation to _dire_ , and Tim couldn't help but think something worse was coming.

He could handle exasperation when he encountered it--Tim knew his dry humor and no-nonsense attitude could be trying in the wrong context (namely, a workplace rather than a battlefield)--but Jeff was nothing if not... disheartened. Not merely fed up with Tim’s antics, Jeff was _sorry_ that Tim made the conscious choice to deceive and manage him. The exchange was observed fully between both men, each knowing that the other knew the game was overplayed. 

Tim’s expression must have been wide-eyed, or bug-eyed, or at the very least hinging on _bereft_ because Jeff had the good grace to look a little ashamed. 

“Oh,” Tim said, his voice hardly more than an arid croak. 

There was a rustle of activity over the table instrumented by neither man; their meals awaited them. Tim and Jeff’s shared gaze broke, leaving each man to his food and his thoughts.

Chewing on a bite of his sandwich, Tim mulled over Jeff’s initial request. _Talk to me._

He found himself thinking about Art, strangely enough, and the look on his face when Tim was sat in the car, a hospital room, or an office with him. The kidnapping and Tim’s disposal of the two assailants was more than enough to take in, but once Tim had come clean about the assault, Art compounded the two. Tim worried the latter event took away from the former; suddenly, he hadn’t rescued himself and Raylan from certain death. It wasn’t a _win_ , a medal to pin to his chest. He’d been brutalized, first, and when Tim looked at Art, he found himself confronted with that failure, and whatever weakness that allowed its happening.

Jeff didn’t know all of that; Tim skipped those details like he’d meant to do all along. Sitting before him was a man who had seen some unsavory elements of Tim’s inner self—all the things he kept private and hidden because he found them embarrassing and ugly--but who was, in effect, a blank slate for Tim.

Tim liked this, and actively took advantage of the circumstances. It was selfish, yes. Tim found himself monitoring his own behavior: when he made Jeff laugh, when they felt at ease with one another, when things got quiet and uncertain. If Jeff seemed perturbed by something, Tim redirected; he learned and did better. He’d convinced himself he wasn’t a complete lost cause because--for a start--he could convince others of as much. 

Surpassing Tim’s personal shame and disappointment in his own behavior was simple annoyance. He was _annoyed_ with Jeff for making him talk about this--relationship shit and all matter else Tim wasn’t so much _determined_ not to talk about, but _convinced_ , rather, that he shouldn’t have to. They weren’t asking too much of one another, Tim had decided. Jeff didn’t have the kind of purchasing power, here, to demand a warranty when what he’d bought into was clearly all patchwork. 

_Hell,_ Tim thought, remembering the state he’d been in that had somehow endeared himself to the man: first drunk, then mentally shattered. If he wasn’t curled around a toilet he was coiled to strike at visions and flashbacks. Rivulets of sweat had beaded from his chest and neck, then raced down his body to form an ugly delta in his pissed-in pants. _You don’t look at that fucking mess and think you get to maintain any standards._

Tim had to wonder what Jeff expected from him, at all. He wanted Tim to open up, but Tim had been split open--gut to clavicle, spilling out and falling apart--when they’d first met. Now that Tim was feeling a little more put-together, Jeff misinterpreted this as distant? 

_There’s irony here,_ Tim thought tiredly. Usually one to appreciate a good smacking around from the universe, Tim couldn’t get behind this instance; it was the fucking-up-his-life kind of irony, the kind most suited to people like Raylan Givens, who bring it upon themselves. 

And as much as he’d done Jeff a disservice by applying to his kindness like he was developing a marketable skill, Tim didn’t wholly believe he’d really entered the space in which he was answerable to another man.

Jeff wanted honesty. Tim made a mental list of the other firsts Jeff had attained from Tim since their meeting. Venturing backwards in time, Tim counted them off: his first--introduction was a strong word-- _mentioning_ to his work colleagues, but that hadn’t gone well. His first time falling asleep in solely the other’s presence. His first time being the one to initially give, rather than receive, a blowjob. His first planned and shared meal, unless Tim was to count an MRE as food. His first ever partner to see him cry--

 _Shit._ Crying would have been bad enough, but Tim knew it had been worse. He’d _sobbed,_ openly and achingly, his first night with Jeff.

Ashamed at his behavior, annoyed with Jeff’s claims to all of these firsts, and angry at himself for not coming out ahead of it, Tim set down his sandwich and aggressively wiped his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing his plate out of the way and leaning over the table in its stead. 

Jeff went wide-eyed. He retreated from his own sandwich without taking his intended bite. “Pardon?”

“I’ve been an asshole.” Tim regarded Jeff with a hard, steady stare. “I was... Back in October, something happened...” Tim rubbed his hand along his opposite forearm under the table, at once anxious and terrified and angry but--unwilling to show it. 

Honesty. Another first, and with Jeff... Tim reckoned it would be his last. 

He didn’t want that.

Resolving to keep his silence, Tim put his hands on the table. The same open-handed gesture, sans the peace offering. “I’ve got an excuse.”

And still, Tim felt a rolling terror in his gut that he’d given too much away, and Jeff would read every dark detail from the hard line of Tim’s lips, or the sadness in his eyes. 

“I know you’ve had a rough couple of months, Tim,” Jeff said, and Tim thought immediately--bitterly-- _You sure as fuck don’t know the half of it_. Jim smiled encouragingly, completely ignorant of the argumentative response brewing in Tim’s mind. “Not to belabor the point, but you did kill some people. What I’m talking about is more... general. It’s not like I think you’re lying to me about those guys or--whatever.” 

A flinch told Tim that was _exactly_ what Jeff thought. He had reservations about something, and had wrongly pinned them on Tim’s justified shooting and accidental killing. Tim found himself feeling relieved; Jeff wasn’t stupid, but he still didn’t know what really had Tim’s nerves twisting into knots. 

The tension building during their shared silence had broken. Tim sunk into his seat and drew back his plate. Attack and retreat. Jeff looked contemplative, and Tim reassessed his strategy: attack, retreat, regroup, wait. 

Believing this was the time to air their grievances ( _Nope,_ Tim thought anxiously, shelving his own, _Not the time. Never a good time._ ), Jeff started, “I think what’s really bothering me is even when we’re _together_... I feel like you’re not really there with me.”

“Is this some thinly veiled commentary on my erectile disfunction?” Tim asked, pointedly spearing with a fork one of the three small pickles that had accompanied his sandwich. 

Jeff ignored him, continuing in a mumble, “The real you.”

“I’m only the real me,” Tim rebuffed lamely, fitting the pickle into his mouth. _Why, if I had the luxury of forging something new, would it be this shit-fest?_

He bit down and enjoyed the satisfying crunch and release of the pickle’s sour juices, but found this experience--like most things, lately--quickly dulled. Feeling as though he was chewing on a ball of lint, Tim finished quickly and found his appetite had left him.

“I feel like you’re watching me all the time,” Jeff said, finally driven to tell the truth. “And you... this sounds creepy. You play into what I want? I don’t know. Remember when all we were doing was making out, and I’d go to the bathroom and have to rub one out afterwards because you got me _so fucking hard?_ ” Jeff only mouthed the last three words, because, hell--it was a family restaurant, and Tim had known all too well the levels of blissful distress he’d achieved in Jeff. He remembered the pink that prickled onto Jeff’s cheeks, the sloppy redness of his bitten lower lip, the peaks Tim had led the poor man up to, then stranded there, hard and leaking. “I feel like it’s back to that, even when you... you know.”

“When I blow you,” Tim supplied shortly. Family restaurant or no, it wasn’t his prerogative to be held prisoner to this conversation any longer than was necessary.

Jeff blushed and forged ahead, concluding: “I feel like I’m doing it myself, through some weird extension of you. And it leaves me feeling sort of... wrong. And predatory. Like you’re not into it at all and getting close to me is something you only do out of necessity.”

“You got a works cited page you wanna submit with this essay? Jesus Christ.” 

“Sorry.”

Tim stared at the man sat across from him, frustrated. He’d figured him out, Tim supposed. The idea that Tim didn’t--on some level--enjoy their intimacy stung nonetheless. Tim’s mind didn’t have to race to find any one instance of mutual pleasure--Tim thought they’d achieved it pretty simply. _A bloodless coup._

He thought about one Sunday when they attempted to be cultured and watch a Hebrew-language film, _Waltz With Bashir,_ because Netflix somehow found it comparable to that Adam Sandler classic, _You Don’t Mess With the Zohan._ When it became clear that the film focused on wartime atrocities, Jeff’s hand snaked up to Tim’s neck and then into his hair. Unlike Jeff’s first venture there, Tim didn’t feel compelled to counter it. The touch was never anything but gentle--just the occasional mussing and smoothing of Tim’s hair. It wasn’t anything special; Jeff might have very well been bored with the film and otherwise occupying himself. 

But Tim’s memory went beyond that and to a point in the film where an animated pair of sea-monster tits were shown, and Jeff’s hand leapt from Tim’s hair to cover his eyes. 

“Your mom’s gonna kill me,” Jeff teased, instigating a wrestling match that laid him out flat. Tim, the victor, engaged him with an impromptu make-out-turned-dry-humping session that lasted--well--until the end of the film. 

Through a parched throat and pursed lips, Tim coughed up something sincere, for once: “ _I’m_ sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to make you feel like shit, or like I don’t want you.” Tim licked his lips. “I want you,” he confessed, giving another first. 

Jeff’s crooked smile was still heavy with sadness. 

“That’s... good to know, Tim.”

“Shit,” Tim murmured, slouching in his seat. “I thought I’d sweet-talked you off that particular bridge.” 

“I didn’t--”

“You don’t want me, too?” 

“...Of course I want you.”

“But you know better, huh? Jesus.”

“This isn’t a referendum, Tim. We’re just talking.”

“Just talking about how you feel creeped out when I suck your dick,” Tim corrected, feeling humiliated but refusing to convey anything beyond bored indifference. “Back to my original question--are we done? Just say so.”

Jeff sighed--again shattering Tim’s presence. 

Tim hadn’t anticipated feeling as poorly as he did. From the second he breached the topic-- _what happened in October_ \--he knew he had given up. He’d put into words how fleeting their time together had been. He’d made his own minuteness in the span of Jeff’s life calculable. But something he felt in the moment he realized he’d led things down this path--something akin to grief and loss and failure all stretched like skin over one another and knotted together into a rippled scar--something... hurt. And it scared him, and he’d tried to turn back, attempted to argue and reason his way into Jeff's good graces.

Tim’s phone buzzed and he glanced at it, relieved for the distraction. His attention flitted to Jeff, then back to his phone. Maybe he wouldn’t have to hear the words. 

Tim stood and swiftly produced enough cash to cover lunch. “I gotta go,” he murmured, managing to meet Jeff’s eyes and look sorry enough to excuse his hurried escape. “It’s the office,” he lied.

Jeff didn’t nod; he just stared. He stared at Tim like there was something more to say, but the slew of words wouldn’t come. 

Just the two--”Goodbye, then.” 

Tim felt himself sort of... sag. It wasn't quite enough. Hell--they hadn’t been each other’s worlds, but there was certainly some level of affection. Jeff had rubbed Tim’s back as he vomited and convulsed, consumed with fever and grief and red, red anger. 

And Tim had watched Jeff’s favorite film-- _Angels in America_ \--even though it was six goddamn hours long. 

And he'd sucked him off during the intermission, if only to drive Jeff as crazy as Tim felt, watching an intermission on DVD. 

It wasn’t the world, but it was something. And it merited a parting greater than deli meats and a shiny red restaurant booth. 

Tim took that truth and ran with it to a park on the otherside of town where he used a borrowed rifle to shoot and kill a man, no questions asked. 

He smelled pickle on his breath after he scrambled down the tree he’d had to climb to get the shot. Kendall from the SOG unit thanked him for filling in on such short noticed, then mentioned he looked a little pale. 

"I'm scared of heights," Tim drawled in his bone-dry way. He inclined his head and looked up at where he'd fit himself awkwardly along a narrow branch. There were little scuff marks and chips of bark taken out of the trunk from where his shoes had dug in.

“Look, I can’t--” Tim started to say, but Kendall had already moved on the ensure the scene remained clear. 

\- 

The space was well-lit and relatively quiet. Jeff supposed the images of dark, noisy, and stuffy offices had been the invention of cop shows and Dick Wolf’s imagination. Here, no corner was bathed in darkness and no face met him half-covered by shadows. That said, he wasn’t uniformed or sporting a badge, and no one paid him much attention. He didn’t command it. 

“Can I help you?” an older, bald man said, passing Jeff in the bullpen. He was thumbing through a file and Jeff could tell he wasn’t so interested in helping as he was addressing Jeff’s undue presence. 

“Uh--yes, thank you. I’m just looking for Tim. Er--Deputy Gutterson?” 

Immediately, the man’s face changed. His expression was one of twin suspicion and dislike; Jeff, feeling as though he’d done something wrong in merely uttering Tim’s name, said nothing else. He was relieved, then, when a familiar face and lanky frame swept in and drew him away. Raylan called over his shoulder to the frowning man, _”I’ve got it, Chief.”_

But the man--the _Chief_ \--followed.

“What’s up?” Raylan asked, trying for casual. The short shakes of his head directed at Chief Deputy Art Mullen where he loomed just beyond Jeff’s left shoulder suggested otherwise.

Raylan was surprised to see him, and supposed either he and Tim had sorted things out, or--given the unusualness of such a visit--Jeff was essentially conveying to Raylan and Art more than he could share with Tim: the relationship was in its death throes. Feeling a little angry with Jeff and embarrassed for Tim, Raylan may have squeezed Jeff’s arm too tightly when leading him out of the bullpen and into the relative privacy of a line of desks and filing cabinets. 

“Tim overpaid for lunch,” Jeff explained, producing two crumpled twenties. Raylan released his arm, then eased into his seat wearing a bemused expression. 

“Did he think the Burger was an actual King?”

“Oh, man,” Jeff cackled a little too loudly, then leaned in and clapped Raylan on the shoulder--curiously, about as hard as Raylan had held his. “If only I’d told him that joke, we’d still be in our booth, pissing ourselves laughing.” In that instant, baring his teeth in an absurd grin, he was like a negative coloring of Tim, save for their identical and unremittingly surly attitudes. “Is he here?” 

“You couldn’t wait to see him again?” Art said, unable to keep the accusation from his voice. He’d weaseled his way into the small space pooled between Raylan’s and Rachel’s desks. 

“I don’t know that I will,” Jeff said, smile stricken from his face. He glanced tensely at Raylan, having rightly figured who Art was and knowing better than to get in an argument with Tim’s boss.

“Oh.” Art sounded surprised, maybe even a little guilty. It was only later, once again seated at his desk, that Art wondered if his argument with Tim had influenced the two men’s parting.

“He left, saying he had a work thing. I figured he’d be here--hell, I thought I’d catch him in the parking lot.” Jeff pressed the cash into Raylan’s hand. “Can you just see that he gets this back? Please?” 

“Sure,” Raylan said, frowning. He’d never had to deal with awkward relationship fallout that wasn’t his own. “Anything extra you want me to pass along?” 

Under the right conditions, it could have been a joke. 

Jeff’s eyes flitted to Art where they grew hard and rested a moment. No, conditions were not ideal. 

“Yeah.” Jeff’s voice was tight, a little distant--like he was on the phone and angry, but only trying to conceal his true feelings through his voice, while his expression said it all. “Tell him I’m sorry I offended his boss’s sensibilities. I hope he doesn’t get shit for it.“

Raylan hardly managed to smother his smirk. "You know, I don't think he will. Thanks for stopping by."

It was an unceremonious departure; Art disappeared into his office as Jeff made for the elevators, nearly running into Rachel in the process. 

After expertly dodging Jeff, Rachel strode into the bullpen, a file fisted in her hand and a proud tilt to her chin. Raylan watched her take her seat and, with it, felt a desperately needed sense of calm and control order the area. “Where have you been?” It was very nearly a _plead_ for her to never go there again. 

“You miss me, cowboy?”

“I miss your modesty,” Raylan said, and marvelled at the reaction it inspired. “Well ain’t that a 100-watt smile. Who’d you bring in?”

“Nine,” Rachel answered, schooling her proud smile into something manageable. She meant Tucker Omny, number nine of Kentucky’s ten most wanted. Raylan let out a low whistle. 

“Well,” he said, clearly impressed. “I ain’t surprised. You were due.” 

“Art said the same thing,” Rachel noted, feigning annoyance.

“That’s what you get,” Raylan hummed, “For being the good kid. All your accomplishments become expectations.” 

Rachel didn’t address his latter point--it was something she’d long figured, too, and was secretly pleased with. “Tim’s a good kid,” she said, needling. 

“And Raylan’s a...” Raylan prompted, but upon hearing no reply, ultimately found himself finishing: “Raylan tries his very, very best.” 

\- 

Tim returned to the courthouse and Marshal’s offices late that afternoon, bullet-proof vest in hand. There was tree resin on his shirt sleeves and a bit of dried, dead leaf puzzled into his hair. With a cool, straight-ahead stare he set himself on a path to the locker rooms to clean up and stash the SOG-issued vest he’d accidentally absconded with, too eager to leave the scene after doing his part.

“Another one?” Raylan practically--and regrettably--hollered. Tim ignored him. 

“Tim,” Rachel prompted, and just like that, Tim slowed in his steps. The vest brushed the side of his leg as he came to a stop at Rachel’s desk. He hadn’t seen her that morning--with the flurry of arrests, if someone wasn’t out running down a fugitive, they were pug-nosed, face-to-desk and pen-to-paper, filling out some form or another. Instead of her usual crisp dress shirt, she wore a slinky, silky top under her jacket. 

“Just bird watching,” he drawled. Then, with a nod, he said to Rachel, “Heard about Omny. About time.” 

Rachel leaned back treacherously far in her chair, and playfully bit the end of her pen. She looked like a Bond Villain trapped in the body of a Bond Girl. “So they say.” 

“Is that how you caught him?” Tim asked through a stupid half-grin that only served to dimple one cheek and broadcast his crooked tooth. “Your feminine wiles?” 

Rachel pursed her lips to keep from breaking into a smile. “Is that what the kids today call a good pistol-whipping?”

“Just the kids I wanna know,” Tim assured, tapping her desk twice as he passed. 

“Hey, um--” Raylan remembered the two crumpled twenties in his pocket. He fished them out and hastily delivered them into Tim’s hand. 

Tim stared blankly at Raylan. “I can be a prostitute or a psychic, but I can’t be both. You’re gonna need to explain.” 

Rachel quirked a small smile; the strange display piqued her interest, too. 

“Jeff came by earlier,” Raylan said, trying for casual. “Said you’d overpaid for lunch.”

Something not unlike practiced serenity fell across Tim’s face. Briefly, however, the line of his mouth twisted like a scar before settled into an easy smile. “Ain’t that considerate,” Tim said, stuffing the cash into his pants pocket. “SOG wants my report filed.” With a simple nod, Tim excused himself and disappeared into the locker rooms. 

“Jeff,” Rachel said, her eyebrows reaching impressive heights in Tim’s absence. “ _The_ Jeff? _Tim’s_ Jeff?”

“I should get going, too.” Raylan tried to avoid her eyes, certain that Rachel could wrangle free any further detail she wanted, if only she had his attention. There was a reason she was Art’s favorite. 

Rachel was out of her seat and perched on the edge of Raylan’s desk in an instant. Raylan absently thought about getting a desk lamp and preventing further invasion. “I doubt the SOG team wants your buckshot on their record,” Rachel teased. “You were saying--about Jeff?”

Trapped, Raylan shrugged awkwardly. “You saw him. Curly dark haired fella, around noon?” 

The memory hit Rachel and her jaw dropped open. A tall, broad-shouldered, curly-haired man had passed her in the doorway. What really stuck in her memory, though, was Raylan’s eyes following the back of the man’s head as he left. Tim had been especially cagey about him, and once more--Rachel only knew of his presence from some offhand comment of Raylan’s. 

“He was _cute,_ ” she said in a pleased whisper. In an unmistakably scandalous tone, she added, “And _tall._ ” Then, like she was doing Raylan a great service by saying so, she informed him dutifully, “He looks like Robb Stark.”

“Well, don’t remind Tim.” Raylan said, making a perturbed face. Rachel cocked her head, curious for an explanation. “Art’s been, uh, needling him about his... friend. Who ain’t his friend no more, so don’t bring it up.” At Rachel’s silent insistence ( _How the hell does she do that?_ ), Raylan grappled for an answer: “They broke up, I think. That’s what he told me ‘n Art, anyway.”

“Why _in the hell_ would he tell you and Art?” Rachel balked. 

“I think Tim’s aware of the development, too--”

“Raylan,” Rachel sighed, exasperated. She came to accept that she ought not press Raylan for details on Tim’s personal business, but still couldn’t fathom how little she’d gleaned on the matter. “Is there some office-wide newsletter I’m not being cc’d on?” 

Raylan, alternatively, seemed hard-pressed to explain how he knew so much. “See, if you weren’t out doing your job, you’d know all this shit.”

Tim exited the locker room, cell phone pressed to his ear. Rather than return to his desk he stood over the fax machine, awaiting a document from the SOG offices. Rachel glanced at Raylan, disappointment written in the pout of her lips and the two lines worrying her brow.

“Hey,” Raylan warned, shooing her off his desk, “ _Don’t._ It’s been a long-time coming.” 

Both Marshals returned to their paperwork, assuming innocence--never mind that Tim had felt their eyes on him. 

There was a welcome kind of monotony that came with filling out superfluous forms and lengthy reports. It never changed--it was the same breakdown of events, just a part of the routine. Tim even smiled a little at the thought; it was certainly a rough couple of months if he attributed the concept of _welcome_ to paperwork. 

Just as he was reaching the end of the first page, Tim’s phone buzzed. He very nearly didn’t look at the text, half-worried it would be SOG-- _again_ \--with another so-called _hostage situation we hope to conclude peacefully,_ which in Tim’s experience only meant _point-and-shoot._ It wasn’t, thankfully. 

_drinks tonight, soldier?_

At the same time, Tim was smacked with another invitation--largely, he believed, at Rachel’s cajoling, because Raylan sounded a little bemused and reluctant when he tapped the glass between his and Tim’s desks and asked, “Broken Hearts Club meeting tonight at that Mexican joint--El Rancho Dorito? How about it?”

“Tapatio,” Tim corrected dryly, typing a swift reply to the text. He added, “And thanks, but no thanks. I’ve got plans.”

Speaking in a sharp tone that suggested if he hadn’t actually _seen_ the look Raylan had given him, he’d pictured it with HD clarity, Tim amended hotly: “ _With Woz._ ” 

_Never mind that I’ve had his dick pressed against my back more nights than I can count, but it was for freedom and when we woke up, we killed people. No homo._

There emerged a tortured gasp--a genuine _guffaw_ \--from somewhere to his left. Raylan or Rachel, Tim couldn’t bring himself to lift his head and search for the matching expression.

“Typo on your paperwork?” Tim asked airily, still hoping against hope that he hadn’t truly spoken aloud.

“No,” Raylan said, his voice a little strained. “Just a smudge. It looks like a dick.”

Tim grinned down at his own paperwork. “Draw a little hat on it.”

Raylan snorted. “I can’t believe Rachel and I are missing out on your esteemed company tonight. It ain’t right.” 

“It’s a cruel world,” Tim acknowledged. 

When Raylan next spoke, he’d dropped the playful teasing routine he’d struck up with Tim. “Why don’t you invite Woz?” he asked, his expression open. 

Rachel leaned back in her seat, interested. She nodded encouragingly at Tim, who stared blankly at his fellow Marshals. 

_No. That’s fucking stupid. We wouldn’t have anything to talk about. What if he asks how I’ve been and I lie to his fucking face--will he read it on yours? No. God, no._

His co-workers’ faces were still bright and engaging, so Tim figured he hadn’t so voiced his opposition. He opened his mouth and expected another jumble of words to escape, some he meant, some he didn’t, _nothing_ he ought to be saying, but instead-- 

“Sure.”

And then, "Yeah." 

And worse still, "I'll do that."

Raylan nodded, pleased. 

Rachel smiled and winked at him, thrilled. 

Tim returned to his paperwork. He felt curiously calm. 

\- 

Woz had agreed to meet Tim, Raylan, and Rachel at El Rancho Tapatio around seven that evening. The place was crowded with families and a slew of UK students celebrating the end of their Fall semester, so the trio decided to convene at the bar next door for cheaper drinks, and return later for carnitas and sopapillas. 

Rachel had traded her wool-blend trouser for a pair of jeans, but kept the silky top. The fabric swam at her breasts, but hugged her tiny waist. She was a vision, leaning against the bar and watching Raylan take extra care to rack the pool balls in anticipation for a match. Tim could see that other bar denizens shared his appreciation--some, a little too much--so he took an absurd pleasure in saddling up next to her and clinking their frosty beer mugs together. 

“You’ve got some admirers,” Tim observed, inclining his head a bit so that she could see over his shoulder. “You want me to back off?”

Rachel favored him with a put-upon smile. As juicy--and unexpected--as Tim’s revelation had been, Rachel knew that her whirlwind-and-gone marriage had long been the topic of some discussion in the office. 

“Statistics would suggest there are eyes out there for you, too.”

Tim brought his mug to his lips. “This is Lexington, Kentucky. The data is skewed.” 

“Is that your way of saying Jeff was one in a million?”

“Don’t,” Tim said, sort of soft, like he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to. 

“Sorry,” Rachel said, plucking at a bit of lint stuck to her shirt. “I wasn’t sure if Raylan had misinterpreted things.” Then, sighing, she admonished: “I can’t believe you never introduced me.”

“Huh,” Tim said, pretending to inspect his beer mug and its quickly diminishing contents. “Seems you got around that particular hurdle. Raylan was googling ‘Robb Stark’ today. Care to explain?”

Rachel bumped their hips playfully. “You’re right. That was generous. He’s more of a Hodor.”

“I don’t need to do that,” Tim said, staring at his feet against the scuffed floor. _Insult him. Make myself hate him._ He still felt a little raw, knowing that he and Jeff had only officially broken things off that morning. Then, with an assertiveness he put on for Rachel’s benefit, Tim smirked, “And he’s not.”

Raylan, who’d finished his first beer while standing awkwardly over the pool table, called out to his fellow Marshals. “What the fuck? Do I have to play by myself, here?” 

“Play with yourself? What?” Tim grinned. Rachel accepted ownership of his beer as Tim took up a pool cue and joined Raylan before some bar floozies took up the invitation, instead. The felt covering the table was a cherry red rather than the standard green, making every odd stain look like blood splatter. 

“Did you break with a baby’s fist? Nothing’s fucking moved.”

“I play with an underappreciated subtlety,” Raylan assured, then stepped aside to allow Tim his turn.

“You play with an underdeveloped fetus arm,” Tim corrected, easily falling into position along the table’s well-worn edge. He made a forceful shot that sent a striped ball flying into a corner pocket, as well as knocked Raylan’s best chance out of range.

“Shit,” Raylan said, his grin screwing up into a scowl as Tim eyed his next target. “New rule, you take a shot of bourbon between turns.” 

“You buying?”

Before Raylan could answer, Tim’s attention was drawn elsewhere. Rather than send the scuffed 14 ball into the left side pocket, he retrieved his phone and eyed a text.

“What the hell,” he murmured, passing the cue off to Raylan and attempting to place a call. It wasn’t answered, so Tim sent a text, instead. He stared at his phone expectantly until a reply was given.

“I forfeit,” Tim said, brushing past Raylan. “You win.”

Rachel frowned as he approached her, reclaimed his drink, then downed it. “What’s up?”

“Woz isn’t late,” Tim mumbled while regarding his phone with a labored acceptance. “He’s not coming. He needs me to pick him up at the Louisville VA.”

Rachel leaned closer to him, making an effort to be heard over the sudden blast of music in the bar. “Is everything okay?” 

“I dunno,” Tim answered honestly, taking his coat from where he’d left it on the back of Rachel’s chair, claiming it. “He’s never pulled this kind of shit before.” 

Tim fished into his pocket for some cash. “I wouldn’t be sorry to find a box of day-old sopapillas in the break room tomorrow,” he said, hopefully. 

“I can spring for those.” Rachel waved her hand dismissively at--and did not accept--Tim’s offer of payment.

“Buy Raylan a few drinks and kick his ass at pool for me, then,” Tim insisted, drawing on his gray winter coat over the same olive-green dress shirt he’d worn to work that day. Rachel was struck by the image, and was a little embarrassed for it. Romanticizing Tim’s service was never something she’d been prone to doing, but the colors, heavy fabrics, and Tim’s youthful face all conspired to place him in some old war film Rachel had seen as a child. Then again, she doubted the barely-there image of a WW2-era soldier stuck in her mind had ever shopped at _The North Face._

Rachel smiled and shook her head. She accepted the cash and with it, the challenge.

Tim left her with a twisted little smile. “And I’m serious about the sopapillas.”

\- 

By the time Tim arrived at the Veterans Affairs clinic in Louisville, he was more angry than concerned. His calls all went unanswered, but Woz relied to every text. It reminded Tim of their mutual friend Mark, who would lie about his whereabouts one way or another--claim he was in the VA, at a meeting, and couldn’t talk on the phone, but in reality, he hadn’t wanted to give away his location at his dealers’ place through nothing but his nervous tone or the Oxy-addled loopiness of his voice. 

The Louisville VA was a bigger outfit than most; the one in Harlan was a daycare by comparison. Still, it was difficult for a lot of veterans to get what they needed from the place. Treatment was great when it became available, but for a service, it was nonetheless rendered as a luxury. 

Bare hands buried deep into his coat pockets, Tim jogged across the street to meet Woz, as requested, in a corner of a nearby park predominantly frequented by smokers. 

_Is that your big fucking problem?_ Tim had texted in a huff while some twenty minutes outside Louisville. _You’d better be smoking crack, buddy. Or I’m going to be real disappointed._

Tim had only stepped boot-to-grass when he felt a change in the air, like something had come to occupy it and left no space for him. Sure enough, there were suddenly bodies--only dark smudges in the evening light--and they appeared with a quietness Tim couldn’t afford them; he hadn’t been followed and snuck up on. This was an ambush. 

Detecting a heavier presence behind him than in front, Tim moved quickly into the park. He couldn’t access the street, but there was a series of street lamps guiding a sidewalk trail. Drawing from his experience as a Marshal, a Ranger, and something of a barfly, Tim had warded off any number of potentially violent encounters by removing the element of anonymity from the equation. Looking assured, Tim turned and set a hand on his concealed weapon. 

No sooner had he touched his bare hand to the cold metal was he rushed by two figures. He could never match Raylan in a quick-draw, but in this instance Tim couldn’t justify pulling at all--neither appeared armed--so he maneuvered away from one and dug into the other with his shoulder. He caught a flash of flesh--something sharp, like a nose or chin--and instinctively swung, making bone-shattering contact. 

The man swore and--Tim stopped. He recognized the voice.

Although treated to only one syllable, Tim was nonetheless certain he’d last heard that voice on some nameless mountain in Eastern Kentucky, shouting profanities over a job gone wrong. 

There was the side of a Chevy, a mess of dynamite, and a couple yards between them, but Tim was sure.

Tim landed another punch before absorbing one, himself. He blocked a second with his forearm, turning and crouching some as he made another grab for his weapon. The hand was met and--Tim would never forgive himself for this--the gun was lost, manhandled and thrown from him. The bodies seemed to multiply and suddenly, someone lunged at his middle and effectively threw him to the ground. Tim handed hard on the concrete, but at least found himself under the light of a street lamp. 

It illuminated the bare faces of the men who crowded around him. 

Hands flat on the ground, Tim made an attempt to stand, but a swift kick to his middle immobilized him. Tim saw that there was no space for him to break into, no weakness to exploit. He took another series of kicks until, tiring of that, someone grabbed his coat front and held him in place for a painful knock to the head. Tim twisted and pulled the man into him, intent on breaking that arm. 

A succession of kicks to his back and legs broke his concentration. 

Grip lost, the man tore away from Tim and had his revenge: one defiant stomp over the fingers on Tim’s right hand.

Tim shouted and cursed--the first noise he’d made since entering the park.

The men were making noises, too--grunts and breaths as they grew tired of their assault. The attacks suddenly came fewer but sharper, more pronounced--as if Tim wasn’t getting the goddamn point, and needed a refresher course in asskicking. 

A boot found the back of his head, and Tim curled inward. 

His face was half cold against the ground, half hot under the lamp light, and obliterated with slick smears of blood. 

Shouts from across the park scattered the men, although not without delivering several parting kicks to Tim’s gut.

The men disappeared towards the street and into two cars that had pulled up, then quickly drove away. On the ground, Tim rolled to his other side and recovered his weapon, though not without considerable pain. He wheezed in a breath, but the blows to his stomach and torso left him feeling crushed. 

What little did enter his lungs felt like a typhoon of dust and bits of glass, and Tim feared a punctured lung. 

He tried for another gasping breath, but vomited instead. A soupy mixture of blood, bile, coffee, and that fucking _pickle_ ushered out of him in two ugly spurts, like water from an unknotted hose. It pooled at his side and down the length of his outstretched arm. The fabric of his coat sucked at it eagerly. He had vomit-reeking coat sleeves to match his bloodstained coat collar. 

“ _Fuck._ ” Even without air to breathe, Tim could always find the strength to swear.

He concentrated on breathing in short, slow breaths. The act was calming and Tim was able to sit up. Head spinning, he touched a hand to his right eye where his vision was obscured. His eyelashes were thick and caked with blood, and the area was so tender that Tim drew his hand back, unwilling to prod further. 

Two sets of hands set upon him. One hooked under his armpit while the other took his forearm. Tim squirmed. 

“No--”

His one good eye found kind, concerned faces. 

As he was lifted up and steadied on his feet, pain shot through every blood vessel, buzzed in every cell of his body. Tim felt it in the roots of his hair and the scarred skin under his tattoos. With the aid of the two strangers, he was walked slowly across the park, across the street, and into the VA. 

Numbly, he peeled away from the strong and sure hands that had lifted him from the ground. He made his way into the closest bathroom where and worked not to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He washed his hands and then his face, all the while dodging questions from the couple that had brought him inside. They were veterans--or at least worked there, as public hours were over and both had key cards to enter the building.

“The fuck was that about?” asked one--a short Latina woman wearing her jet-black hair in a loose ponytail at her neck. “Who were those guys?”

Tim did not reply; he knew he was inching closer to having an answer for both, but his head was still swimming. He bent over the sink, elbows locked as he willed himself not to crumple to the floor. Blood was dropping heavily from his nose and into the sink. He spat, joining it with more. 

The simple gesture nearly cost him his footing. 

The large set of hands that had hauled him off the ground was on him again. Instinctively, Tim jerked away. Blood pounded in his ears and Tim was unable to hear what the man said to Nina--the woman, Tim at least caught her name--who then left the restroom. 

“‘m _fine_ ,” Tim said, spitting another mouthful of blood into the sink. He followed that with another involuntary burst of vomit and bile. His head ached and truthfully, if his dignity hadn’t been on the line, Tim would have preferred to just lay on the cold ground until the pain lessened. Instead, he’d been dragged to his feet and interrogated. 

When Nina returned, she had some medical supplies under one arm, and a plastic chair from the lobby under the other. She set up the chair near the farthest sink, giving Tim some room to breathe. 

“Jack’s gonna set your fingers,” she said, handing the man some makeshift supplies. “I can tell you from experience, not havin’ ‘em in working order is a bitch.” 

“Working order?” Tim mumbled, trying to focus on her right hand. Unlike her left, it was a stump, and the only discernable remnant of digits was part of the middle knuckle. “Yours quit.” 

“Concussed or a natural-born comedian,” Nina mused aloud. “Jack, what do you think?” 

“I think he should know I was the one who had to amputate your fingers,” Jack said with a wink to Nina. 

Tim issued a dazed apology. He tried to lift his head to watch Jack work--sure, he’d just had six sets of fists and boots wailing on him, but having a hand cradle his own set off all his internal alarms, and he was was drawn to attention. But his head lolled back, too heavy with blood and pounding and ache. He stared at the bathroom ceiling and decided he couldn’t figure when, precisely, he’d fucked up and led himself to this. 

Had it been 11am when he decided to continue lying to Jeff because at least when it ended, Tim could claim he hadn’t lost anything, not really? 

Or had Tim fucked himself an hour later when someone put a rifle in his hands and he didn’t even question his permission to use it?

 _And don’t it just beat all,_ Tim thought, blinking heavily at the stained ceiling tile, _That Mexican food sounds fucking amazing right now._

After his smashed fingers were set, Tim took in a few long breaths that made his sides ache. He kept breathing until they only felt dull and numb.

“Easy, soldier,” Jack said, noticing Tim’s obvious discomfort. Seeing the ink on his wrist he asked, “You a Ranger?”

Tim winced. “Yeah, I was. ‘Course, I’d prefer you forget that detail.”

“Son,” Jack laughed, although he was no more than five years older than Tim, “There’s no shame in getting your ass kicked, outnumbered like you were.” 

Tim knew his type: the one guy in the unit who wouldn’t give you shit for looking scared or breaking down and crying after a FUBAR mission, after you’d lost your buddy, or felt just too far away from home. 

Tim twisted away from Jack and out of the chair Nina had provided. He spat again into the sink and stuffed his nose with paper towels. 

“I came to pick up a friend,” he said, his mind finally able to switch focus from _breathing_ to drawing words together. “And no, they weren’t him.”

Although he still felt too rattled to come to terms with Woz’s absence, Tim held no illusions about waiting around the Louisville VA. His body shuddered at the thought of driving back to Lexington, but seemed to relax when he envisioned a hot shower and his bed. He patted his pants pocket for his keys. 

Nina hesitated before insisting that Tim report the incident. Although it didn’t benefit the VA to get this kind of press--and, sure, Tim was up and walking--the attack had been especially vicious and worthy, she felt, of an official investigation. Fights weren’t uncommon amongst veterans--especially young ones--returning home, often aimless or without the resources they needed. Desperation fueled just as many visitors inside the VA as it did aggravators outside its doors. 

Tim shook his head. The gesture itself felt slow and warm, like Tim’s head was encased in cotton. Bypassing his keys and fetching his wallet, instead, Tim flashed his badge and ID. “Deputy U.S. Marshal,” he said, tiredness driven hard into his voice like a nail splitting wood. “I’m sure I’ll remember.”

Tim shrugged off further questions and care; his business there was done. Satisfied that the blood obscuring his vision wasn’t coming from in or around the eye--rather, from an ugly gash just above his eyebrow--Tim wiped down the stained-pink sink and mumbled his thanks to Jack and Nina. 

“Who was your friend?” Nina prompted, folding her arms across her chest. If she’d seen one stubborn young soldier, she’d seen thousands of them. “In case we see him around?”

Tim grabbed a few extra paper towels from the dispenser. “Mike Wozzen,” he answered, admittedly after searching for, but finding no reason to lie.

Jack frowned. “I know Woz. He was here a few days ago... said he was heading back home. Longmont, I think.”

Tim wet his lips and tasted blood. “Guess he got a ride, then.” 

\- 

Tim drove himself home, stopping once for a bottle of water and napkins. The cashier--a young kid drinking from a Cup o’ Soup and using a wrapped Slim Jim as a bookmark in a shiny geology textbook--carefully watched Tim pace the store. 

“We’ve got Neosporin,” he’d said when Tim went to check out his one item. “And band-aids. Shelf nearest the door.” 

“Just this, thanks,” Tim said, pulling from his pocket the last of the crumpled twenties Jeff had seen returned to him. 

It wasn’t so bad, Tim thought upon reflexion. The worst of it was his fingers. The blows to his gut took the wind out of him and hurt like hell, and there was still the opportunity for angry spots indicative of internal bleeding to blossom--but so far he felt relatively whole and out of danger. He knew, too, that most of the men who’d cornered him had been muscle, but hadn’t landed a single punch. The point was for Tim to be on the ground and see a dozen boots ready to kick his teeth in, so, yeah--mission accomplished.

Sluggishly dragging himself up the stairs to his apartment, Tim supposed he shouldn’t be shocked at how much his body protested moving. He’d been in skull-splitting pain after the attack, achy in the car, stiff going up the stairs, and was mentally preparing himself to feel like pulp by morning. At least, in moving, Tim felt assured that nothing was broken. 

In his apartment, Tim poured himself a glass of water. He drank gingerly, given the renewed cut in his lip, then pressed the cool glass against his cheek. Tim took a seat at his small kitchen table and dropped his head into his folded arms. No thoughts passed through his mind; he didn’t wonder about Jeff or worry about Woz. He didn’t even consider the fact that he’d seen his attackers’ faces--each and every one--something with which to alert Raylan. _Tomorrow,_ he knew, would afford him the time to pour over Raylan’s binder or--hell--search every online criminal database in the country. In his experience, a busted face and tender limbs were Art’s chief markers for desk duty. 

After nearly ten minutes he hauled himself up and lumbered into his bedroom. 

He wondered why he hadn’t pushed through the pain and scrambled to his feet after the beating, chased the guys down and given them hell. It didn’t matter that it was infeasible--Tim wondered why he hadn’t fucking _tried._ Why had he stayed on the ground and inhaled dirt? He was a Ranger, goddamnit. He took physical exertion and blinding pain in extra helpings, please and thank you. Why--and _when_ \--had he gone from being angry to being... tired. 

He wasn’t physically tired so much as--just. Tired. Tired of this, tired of his body taking a beating he didn’t intentionally put himself through. Tired of being subject to the plans of others. 

Tired of taking it all home with him. Given the benefit of a fair fight, Tim would have left some of the ache he was feeling outside the VA. 

On that mountaintop, even.

It was a tiredness that cost him the hindsight of care or concern. So, instead of cleaning his cuts and tending his wounds with ice, Tim brushed his teeth, took one tablet from his dwindling supply of sleeping pills, and eased himself gently into bed.

If he looked like shit in the morning, so be it.

\- 

Tim looked like shit the following morning. Dried and crusted blood painted brown splotches around his mouth, hairline, and the shredded palms of his hands. The cut above his eye had reopened and bled generously along his right brow, matting the short hairs. Everywhere his skin resembled a bad watercolor painting--all blues, purples, and yellows swimming together, lacking elegance or design. His nose--once swollen comically in size--had largely returned to normal. Worryingly, two of Tim’s fingers on his right hand were still crooked and enlarged, and he took care to treat that injury, first. 

Inspecting the bruises on his torso, legs, and groin settled Tim’s nerves; they looked worse than they felt, really. Furthermore, their application by boot made them somehow... less personal.  
He stumbled around his apartment and was glad for it; no step was so strained that he couldn’t take it. After studying his face, Tim found that he was still all there--at least, as present as he’d been, previously. There was maybe even a little more. 

Tim showered slowly, allowing the hot water to sooth his muscles. Unable to button a shirt with his bruised and mangled fingers, Tim wriggled into a white pullover and the first pair of trousers he spotted which didn’t require a belt. Finally, Tim added three bandages to the ensemble: one large one along the shredded skin of his left palm, and the other, smaller two over the ugly cut above his eye.

His morning routine was so marred by patchwork medical treatment that, in an effort not to be late to work, Tim left his apartment without breakfast. Stopping for a coffee was a futile gesture; Tim found he could not drink it without causing great discomfort to his cut lip and clicking jaw. He walked it into the court building with it, anyway, never having tasted a proper sip. 

Arriving early enough into work spared Tim many undesired run-ins, but choosing the elevator, Tim supposed, sealed his fate in that department. Tim leaned into the far corner of the compartment and was blissfully alone until a hand darted in as the doors were closing, opening to feature Dunlop and some law clerk Tim didn’t know by name. 

“Jesus, Tim,” Dunlop said in needless whisper; the clerk was not a foot away from either of them, and both were still only part-way inside the elevator. “What happened?”

“Swelling’s pretty bad, huh?” Tim said dryly. “Yeah, my ice maker broke. Awful luck.” 

Dunlop frowned. “I mean--” Dunlop closed his mouth. Tim knew very well what he meant; he simply was not going to answer. 

Both were appropriately aghast at the sight of the young Marshal, and equally chastened when Tim asked abruptly, “What floor?” With a skittering of heels on the tile floor, the clerk and Marshal finally joined Tim in the elevator. 

Last to enter the small space was Raylan, still tall but stunted, somehow, with the absence of his hat. He and Tim exchanged curious stares. Tim smirked. He would have quirked his eyebrows if the cut didn’t hinder such a motion. 

“The hell happened to your face?” Raylan asked, always more direct than Deputy Dunlop cared to be. He saddled up to Tim in the now-crowded elevator. The others gathered all wisely kept quiet on Raylan’s own similarly decorated appearance and pronounced limp. 

“Oh, shit,” Tim hummed coolly. “Is my lipstick smudged?” He handed Raylan the untouched coffee as a sign of good faith. “The hell happened to yours?”

“Barfight,” Raylan lied, accepting the coffee and delighting in the first sip. He appeared to have taken a direct hit between the eyes, and was showing early signs of matching, crescent-moon shiners. He pointed at them and joked, “Rachel’s handiwork. She’s scrappy in a brawl.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tim agreed, issuing a thumbs-up with the hand baring his bruised and set fingers, effectively miming a gun. “Let’s go with that.”

The elevator stopped at the floor below the Marshals offices. The clerk darted out. 

\- 

Tim made a face when Raylan proposed his (albeit poorly executed) murder attempt theory.

“This... was not that,” Tim stressed, sporting an odd, assured smile as Raylan followed him out of the elevators and into the Marshals offices. “This was a scare tactic.”

Raylan looked unconvinced. He turned his hands palms-up and comically gestured at Tim’s sore self. “How’s so?” 

Tim swatted Raylan’s hands away, not appreciative of the insinuation that he looked any worse than Raylan did. “They showed their faces,” Tim reasoned darkly. “Mind if I take a second look at that book of yours?”

“I added a few chapters,” Raylan said, mulling over the idea, himself. He and Tim simultaneously removed their coats. The office wasn’t yet buzzing with life, but they’d garnered a few hazardous stares. 

“Oh, good,” Tim rubbed his jaw with his palm a circular pattern. “I love a surprise ending.”

Raylan rounded his desk and ventured behind Tim’s. He clapped Tim gently on the shoulder and steered him toward the break room, never mind that it was _Raylan_ who had the noticeable hitch in his step, and might have benefitted more from a guide. 

“I’ll take a bag of ice for my hand, if you’d be so kind,” Raylan said, coolly and kindly and--above all--as though Tim had offered. Tim started in on the task, anyway, having intended to make one for himself since that morning when his fridge had failed to produce ice. 

“So, I guess you were right, then,” Raylan said, dropping the charming affectation and finally sounding about as bad as he looked. 

Tim, alternatively, had bravado to spare. “Can you be more specific? I impart a lot of wisdom. It’s kind of my thing.”

“Things didn’t quiet down.”

As he gathered a cloth, a handful of ice cubes, and a plastic bag in which to fit the whole fixture, Tim paused to glance at Raylan and gauge the prospective size of his ice pack. “How bad was it?”

Raylan shrugged. He knew Tim was asking after something more heinous, but Raylan honestly had little to tell. “Worst was someone stepped on the back of my leg. Or sent the Miami Dolphins’ defensive line to do it.”

Tim’s wry smile drew into a thin line when he took in the bruised and cut mess made of Raylan’s hands. He’d gotten off a few more punches than Tim had--or, at least, some better-placed ones. “Can you draw with that?” Tim asked, a little angrily, and a little unsure as to why he felt that way.

Raylan jutted his chin toward Tim’s own mangled digits. “Can you pull a trigger?”

Tim snorted. They were a sorry pair. 

“How about you?” Raylan asked, his voice thick. Their matching attitudes in the elevator had been for show; each seeing the state of the other brought events down into a heavy and sordid reality. 

Tim awkwardly wriggled his fingers. “This, I’d say. Though I can’t claim to have enjoyed those kicks to the gut, none.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Raylan assured, scratching a line down the underside of his chin. 

On the counter near the fridge, Tim spotted a small take-out box with his name written on it in Rachel’s neat script. 

His sopapillas. 

It was enough to convince Tim of her well-being, but Raylan, anticipating Tim’s concern, nonetheless admitted to calling her late last night to, in his words, “see that she got home safely.”

_“What are you, my mother’s left ovary? Shut up. Don’t call me.”_

Admittedly, it had been rather late. Her furious, half-awake reply was wholly deserved. 

At 8:37 in the morning, however, Art’s raucous display seemed a little unwarranted. 

He barged into the break room, coat still twisted around one arm. He’d likely started his search upon hearing some office whispers. 

“Oh-- _Jesus Christ,_ ” he said it like a swear. “Either one of you assholes wanna explain why you look like complete assholes?”

Tim kept his focus on the ice pack. “First rule of fight club--oh, shit.”

“In my office. _Now._ ”

“Give us a goddamn second, Art,” Raylan said, any anger in his tone overcome with tiredness and ache. “He’s making ice packs for two, now.”

Tim smartly said nothing, although he worked a little faster. 

After he made a two neat ice packs for Raylan and himself, Art trotted them into his office and Rachel, seeing the display, was up and out of her seat, then closing Art’s office door behind her at the kind of breakneck speed that truly spoke for her workhorse nature. The Chief seemed glad for her presence--at least he’d have someone on his side.

“Who wants to start?” 

Neither Tim nor Raylan spoke up. Tim pressed his ice pack to his jaw and let out and involuntary hiss. 

“Sounds like we have a volunteer,” Art said in a tone that Tim knew better than to question. Still, he was hesitant. 

Rachel pushed off from where she rested against Art’s desk. “I think you should start by explaining the Raylan Givens routine you’ve got going on,” she prompted, gesturing to Tim’s face and way he held himself.

“Et tu?” Tim grumbled, removing the ice pack from his cheek so as not to impede his speaking. 

“ _Tim,_ ” Rachel snapped. The dark look in her eyes said, _I’d slap you right now if I didn’t think a breeze could knock you ass-first to the ground._

And despite her tone, Tim knew she was disappointed, not homicidal. Tim wanted to tell her he had no desire to keep fucking up, but he supposed that she’d heard it all before--from her ex-husband, her sister, her brother-in-law... 

From her friends, Rachel wanted--and deserved--better. Tim wet his freshly busted lip and endeavored to give an answer, not an excuse. 

“I got jumped, beat on by six guys outside the VA in Louisville. It wasn’t serious--” Tim received some flat looks, and standing a little straighter was his only means of combatting them. “--and anyway, they were easing off by the time anyone saw and came to help.” Tim wiped his bruised and swollen nose as if he still felt the blood gushing down into his mouth, staining his teeth. “I was there because a friend of mine texted, asked me to come pick him up. Couple weeks ago, this friend was down in Harlan looking for work.”

“Work, huh?”

Tim eyes flicked to Art, then stayed there. It wasn’t to Rachel that he had to make his case; it was Art. “Mad minute bullshit,” Tim said coolly, knowing Art would catch his reference. Tim had been cornered into these kinds of talks, before. He continued, “I got an email from him this morning, explaining things. He’s already back in Colorado.” 

Behind him, Raylan made a nondescript sound of tacit approval. 

“Thing is,” Tim continued, wishing on his life that the ice pack in his hand could be exchanged for a glass of bourbon, “The texts weren’t from him. The guys he was running with turned over his hotel room, put a gun to his head and told him to think about his future. He left,” Tim paused and figured for travel time, “Two days ago. Without his phone.” Tim shuffled his feet, eager to escape the figurative spotlight. “I figure Raylan’s got a similar story.”

Raylan remembered only being caught off guard late in the evening after a few hours drinking with Rachel. He was cornered outside a convenience store, thrown a few punches, then had his gun flung carelessly into the surrounding empty lot. He took the beating of his adult life before a knock to the back of his head caused his entire world to plummet into darkness. He waved a dismissive hand. “It’s not as cool as Tim’s. I’ll pass.” 

Art glanced between the two of them, incredulous. “And you think this is connected, somehow? Some mystery texts and beatings--so many goddamn beatings you’d think Oprah was handing them out?”

“Well, _yeah,_ ” Tim said, a little angry at being forced to answer, then doubted when he did. “Why else? I don’t know those guys. You think someone at the Louisville VA has a problem with me? Sorry, they don’t. That’d just be you.” 

It was the kind of line Tim would have been able to curb--easily, coolly--some months ago, before October. But the race to sabotage himself continued, and Tim gave a little sigh in anticipation of being crushed under the weight of Art’s oncoming verbal assault. 

Except--it never came. 

And Tim didn’t know it, but Art’s mind was with Jeff and the message he didn’t leave for Tim so much as... _for_ Tim. A sharp, displaced word in his defense. 

_“Tell him I’m sorry I offended his boss’s sensibilities. I hope he doesn’t get shit for it.“_

Art hadn’t thought there was any merit to it; he didn’t know Jeff and if that’s what the man thought of his and Tim’s working relationship, then Jeff didn’t know Tim. Art pegged him as just one of those over-sensitive types who saw all forms of authority as oppression. 

Except--Tim was the least sensitive person he knew, and that same defensive, hurt tone was spilling out of him and echoing a similar sentiment. And so it struck Art--slowly, painfully--that Tim had confided in Jeff, and both assessments carried some truth. 

In his shame, Art did not raise his voice. He rounded his desk and took a seat, letting the matter rest. 

“It was those same guys, Art.” Tim said, his tone strong with certainty. “We should put a trace on Woz’s cell.” 

“They wouldn’t have dumped it by now?” Rachel asked, quiet--as though she believed some torrential verbal wave would escape Art, too. 

His eyes still on Art, Tim mumbled, “It was a real nice phone.” 

“Tim,” Art said, leveling with him. “Stay a minute.”

It was a not-so-subtle way of telling Rachel and Raylan to leave the office, which they promptly did. If he thought Tim was walking into a particularly heavy storm of beratement, Raylan would have stayed and weathered it with him. Just as well as he could see a professional scolding from a mile away, Raylan knew when Art was mustering himself up for his impression of a fatherly talk--and under no circumstances did Raylan want to be around for that.

Tim, however, didn’t have a choice.

His hands twitched nervously at his sides. 

“Boss,” he started even before the door had closed on his fellow Marshals, “let me finish this.” 

“I do want you finished, Tim.” Although it sprang to mind, Tim thought better of mentioning his aims for Colorado. 

“So get the trace,” Tim said, feeling brave and reckless in equal measure. 

In that moment, Art saw a flash of the steadied assurance that made Raylan such a force to be reckoned with. He saw a man with no regard for job security, no limits, no uncertainties, and no... attachments. Art saw a young man with nothing left to lose but who would-- _maybe_ \--gain some measure of it back. 

He just needed a little support.

“I’ll make the call,” Art said, picking up his office landline. He paused a moment and allowed the phone to rest against his shoulder. He touched his finger to the space between his upper lip and nose. “Tim,” he said. “You’re bleeding.” 

Stupidly, Tim looked down. A hot glob of blood--part clot, part fresh--slid down his lip and hit the floor. Its color seemed to consume the carpet, wet and full, and Tim could only continue to stare. 

“Sorry,” he said, eyes on the stain. The words seemed displaced, out of their time.

Art returned the phone to his desk and stared a moment, like suddenly he’d found something more pressing than Tim’s lead. “Where were you yesterday?”

Tim blinked and lifted his head. “SOG needed a guy.”

“SOG is supposed to contact _me_.”

“Vicks didn’t pin a note to my jacket, sorry.” Again, Tim could have kicked himself. Harshly, he gave himself an order: _Stop fucking up._ ”You said it was up to me, anyway.” 

Art sighed; he wasn’t angry, only wound too tight. “I’m starting to rethink that policy.” 

Tim was picking up the slack in a sister department; it hardly constituted going off the rails. Still, it reminded Art why it was his say-so in the first place. He didn’t like to set Tim up for this kind of work, whereas trigger-happy Steve Vicks in SOG lived for this shit. 

This mad-minute bullshit.

Art pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know, Tim.”

“Sir?” _What don’t you know?_

There was a long, torturous wait for the Chief’s reply. When he finally spoke, _bereft_ didn’t even begin to cover it. “I don’t know what I can say or do that’ll ever make up for this.” 

“Make up for what?” Tim asked, and not willfully dumb, either. Something in Art’s tone sounded chopped short, like he meant to go on to share something difficult. But there was nothing--or else, Art failed to share it. 

It took Tim a moment to realize his fears were unfounded; Art was referring to the obvious--Tim’s assault. Tim wanted to shout that, for every good intention--from Art, Rachel, Raylan, and Vasquez--it didn’t help to speak in coded terms about the most humiliating experience of his life. And after three months of anger, fear, chemical sleep aids, and lies, Tim was finally convinced there was no _forgetting_ what had happened. Angrily and reluctantly, he’d settled with acceptance of all the things he couldn’t change, before and after the fact.

He was apparently the only one. 

“That transfer I mentioned,” Tim said, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest. “Should I mention it again, make your decision here easier?”

“Oh,” Art sighed, “No need--your shitty attitude and blatant disrespect for me, this office, and _your badge_ is doing the job just fine.”

Tim blinked, taken aback. There was no bite to the comment, not underlying threat, but the words themselves were harsh enough. “I am good at my job,” he said, as certain of the sentiment as though he had it in his rifle crosshairs. “I’ll prove it.”

Tim left the office and stood at his desk, unsure of what to do with himself but certain he couldn’t stay in Art’s line of sight. He only had the inklings of a plan, but would need time to iron out the details. 

There was a certain three hour drive he could make, he supposed. 

Rachel watched as Tim tore his coat off the back of his chair and started through the bullpen with it. “I gotta meet an informant,” he told her when she burst from her seat and came into step alongside him. 

“I’ll go with you,” she said, throwing out an arm to keep Tim halted at the door.

“It ain’t like that.” Tim was focused on his task and unwilling to spare Rachel any detail. “It’s fine. Hell, Raylan knows him.” 

“Well there’s my confidence, restored,” Rachel snapped, then drew back. “I’ll follow up on the trace Art’s running.” It was a kind of compromise; Rachel still wanted in, still wanted a means of seeing Tim through the events they all felt were building to some inevitable end. 

“Thank you,” Tim nodded, and departed the offices. 

With a handful of tissues stolen from the reception desk and wadded up into his nose, Tim was ready for the hours-long drive to meet Boyd Crowder. He set himself on a path well-traveled by Raylan. 

“Shit,” he murmured, quickly changing lanes. He had one errand to do, first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO READY FOR THIS TO BE DONE. I haven't quiiiite figured out an ending, though. 
> 
> SPOILER ALERT  
> alien invasion ?
> 
> ETA: WHOA WHOA WHOA, WAIT A GADDANG SECOND. I don't Tumblr but I creep like nothing else, AND I REALLY ENJOY YOUR BUSINESS AND HAPPENINGS, DEFINITELYNOTEFFY. Rachel destroys worlds in the next chapter. And omg do you hate Jeff? I'll kill him. FOR YOU. 
> 
> He's dead.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wynnebago rides again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This chapter is for my new friendly friends Rachel and Effy! ~*~*~YOU GUYS~*~*~
> 
> 2\. While rewatching season 1, I realized my dead baddie Charlie Weaver shares the name of the adorable basement evidence room guy, Charles Weaver, who did the right thing and took a bunch of stolen money to Mexico to start Tim’s cult. I swear, there’s no damage done to sweet basement Charlie’s head.
> 
> 3\. The "Fargo" mention: image 53/215 here: http://evanerichards.com/2010/504

In the open space of the Nicholasville Chrysler dealership, the wind picked up, carrying with it the odd snow flurry. It was sunny and bright and the cold front would be short-lived, but Tim saw promise in the early showing. 

The dealer poked his bald head out of the building across the lot and waved exaggeratedly at Tim. Tim waved back less enthusiastically--just a single gesture to show his contentedness waiting in the cold. It wasn’t so bad, really, save for the irritation to his nose. Mindful of the bruised knot that had formed overnight, Tim kept his head arched at an angle as he closed his eyes and leaned against his SUV. There were others just like it on the lot selling for a great deal more than Tim had paid.

A ghost of a smile swept across Tim’s face and he ducked, hiding it from no-one, but hiding it all the same. Today was for revelling in victories, no matter how small. 

And, he hoped, seeing a greater victory through.

It was still early in the morning, so when Jeff eventually pulled into the lot in his truck, Tim knew he’d arrived from home and not yet taken off work. His unwashed hair was pressed flat under a ballcap and his shirt--visible under his unbuttoned coat--was wrinkled and loose at the neck, obviously slept in. Spying Tim, Jeff zipped his coat and pocketed his hands. 

He walked slowly at first--a little struck by the cold, and a little wary of Tim, if he were honest with himself. He’d answered Tim’s phone call that morning in a haze, agreeing to meet before his mind had caught up with the circumstances. It was scarcely a day since their parting and, worryingly, Jeff caught himself feeling excited to see Tim again. He’d taken the time driving to the dealership to steel his resolve: he liked Tim, but the guy was about as forthcoming as--Jeff noted his surroundings, amused-- _a used car salesman_ , and besides frustrating, it was worrying. 

In his youth, Jeff had learned not to confuse _worry_ for _care_ and _concern_ for _affection._

The lines were always a little blurred, but--at least presently--they did not align in Tim’s favor. 

“Holy shit,” Jeff exclaimed, staggering for a step before rushing Tim and taking him by the shoulder. The sickly spread of bruises told only slivers of an awful story. Although in themselves indicative of what had happened, Jeff was left staring at the marks and cuts with more questions. “What the hell happened? Are you okay? Have you been to a hospital?”

“I took the break up pretty bad,” Tim tried to joke, but then saw the look of absolute devastation that cascaded like a bucket of ice water down Jeff’s face, and was chastened. “Sorry,” he said, his grin falling into a grimace. “That wasn’t funny.” 

“No,” Jeff agreed, sounding frayed. “That wasn’t your best.” 

Jeff wore a voluminous, muddy-brown colored coat that might have been fashionable given his long legs and tall frame, but really was just stupid. He looked like a fudge-pop.

As Tim thought this, a small smile reclaimed his face, but was short-lived. Jeff stood, arms slackened, staring. It was the same expression of bewilderment and grief that Tim had faced at the restaurant--only worse. The look on Jeff’s face was practically framed so that Tim couldn’t miss it: the errant curls poking out from each side of the too-old, too-small baseball cap reminded Tim of a workhorse’s blinders, and the collar of his coat--when turned up--nearly met his ears. 

Tim’s smile disappeared for good when he focused on the image as a whole. There was only a kind, handsome face pinched by the cold and twisted in concern, all sat neatly atop a man who’d rolled out of bed and rushed to meet him. 

Feeling like Jeff was at least due some matter of explanation, Tim offered the short version: “It’s to do with the kidnapping. Back in October. Raylan and I have been looking into it and, whatdya know, we found something.” 

Jeff pulled off his cap and raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. Bits of snow hugged the curls and then were gone. 

“Well,” Jeff spoke just loud enough to betray his dwindling patience, then started to ramble. “ _That’s good?_ I mean, is it? It doesn’t look good. Jesus, Tim. It looks bad. It looks really, really _bad._ ” 

Tim noted Jeff’s fingers at his side; they twitched and worked, either from the cold, or Jeff was exorcising out the desire to draw Tim close, to see for himself that he was still solid and firm before him and not some bruised, pulpy mold. 

“I feel--bad,” Tim tried, sort-of agreeing with Jeff because the man seemed to crave some form of assurance. Belatedly, Tim realized confirming the worst wasn’t a helpful tactic. “For running out on you again,” he amended.

“Does it hurt?” Jeff asked, staring up and down Tim’s body as if he knew the bruises went further. 

“No,” Tim answered, then carried on like Jeff was really there for the idle conversation, and not because Tim had told him it was important that they meet. “A buddy of mine from my first tour does this thing where he takes a weird Christmas card photo and sends ‘em out...” Jeff nodded slowly, dumbly, trying to gauge the size of Tim’s pupils and figure how to tactfully bring the dangers of unaddressed concussions into the conversation as Tim continued, “One year he’d gone to a dermatologist and had pictures taken of every mole on his body--like a cancer screening? Everyone got this bizarre, close up of a questionable... Well, mine was more of a weird freckle on his lip, but.” Tim laughed a little, slid a hand out of his pocket, and gestured to his discolored face. “I feel like there’s a joke here and I could one-up him, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Mr. and Mrs. Claus and a commentary on spousal abuse... something good and tasteless. I’m gonna think more on it.”

“Yeah, there’s a germ of an idea there,” Jeff agreed absently. He spoke so softly and without conviction that Tim figured his attempt at humor had died on arrival. He was sure of it, then, when Jeff sighed and mimed Tim’s gesture, but spoke of the whole of Tim’s problems, rather than only the remnants from a manipulated encounter with just a select few.

"If it's something like this, Tim-- _or not, just_ \--you can still call me. I can help... where I can.”

And Tim thought--well, from the unconvinced expression twisting Jeff’s face, _they both thought_ \--about such assistance, offered honestly and without conditions. 

“You wouldn’t want to get back together.” 

It wasn’t a question; Tim knew the opportunity was shot to shit, but he would be lying if there wasn’t some part of him that desperately wanted Jeff back. It would be unfair, the relationship still riddled with lies and deceptions. Tim couldn’t foresee coming into such a thing with ideal circumstances--not anymore, not ever again. 

“No,” Jeff admitted, because he was whole in places Tim wasn’t and could see viable alternatives. Tim didn’t have such high hopes. “But you can still call me,” he insisted, screwing up his face some as if it physically pained him to come up with any reason why Tim shouldn’t. “It’s not the Middle Ages, man. I don’t have to suck out illnesses through your dick like a leech. I can make you soup or an ice pack, or _something._ ”

Tim shrugged a shoulder. “Ice maker was broken, anyway.”

“You just mix water and alcohol in a bag and freeze it...” Jeff started to explain, then realized Tim was only joking with him. Jeff scrubbed a hand over the two-day growth on his face. “Will you, though? Call me next time? Hell, I don’t even feel presumptuous in asking.” 

Tim nodded a little too vigorously. There’d always be a next time. “Yeah. Thanks, I will.” Tim scraped the bottom of his shoe against the cement, like he was digging in for something. 

“Don’t take what I’m about to say as anything other than it is,” he began, inclining his head and glancing at Jeff. “It’s just the apology I owed you yesterday.”

“You don’t--”

“Yeah,” Tim interrupted, looking solemn. “I do. Um. You wanted me to tell you things. I’m gonna try that, now. A ways after the fact--I know.” It hurt to smile, but in this instance Tim couldn’t help it. “I like you,” he said. The smile faded as he forged on into his apology. “And I _used_ you, which isn’t something I tend to do to people I like. I’m thinking I should have stopped using you... a long while ago.”

Tim wet his lips and Jeff thought he meant to continue, but couldn’t. “I like you too, Tim. A lot.” Then, because the look of guilt on Tim’s face was almost too much to bear, Jeff added quickly, “I don’t feel used.”

Tim’s hang-dog expression only worsened as he drawled in his teethed-on-gravel voice, “That’s because I was also lying to you, to cover up the using.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The wind picked up--a kind of wet wind that cut through coats and shirts and went right to the bone. Jeff joined Tim in leaning against Tim’s SUV, which he had situated against the chill. Instead of to one another, Jeff and Tim found themselves speaking side-by-side. Almost immediately, Jeff felt the adversarial element--not between himself and Tim, necessarily, but between his and Tim’s respective realities and desires--leave them. Jeff made a quiet offer in its passing: “If you could be a little more specific, I’d like to forgive you.”

It was a generous proposition. And tempting. Tim rubbed his aching jaw. “No,” he said. “I’d still rather lie.” Tim looked over the lot, at his shoes, everywhere and anywhere--if only fleetingly--so that he didn’t have to meet Jeff and explain the sadness and regret written across his face. A snowflake landed on the toe of his left boot and Tim watched it melt before lifting his head. 

And for a terrible moment, Tim realized what he’d left on the table: no _real_ answer for his behavior towards Jeff. Enough of a gap in the details that Jeff might just assume it was some fault of his own. 

“I take full responsibility, here. And I’m sorry,” Tim said in a rush, “If this is way too fuckin’ much. If I’m reading things wrong, and you’re just being polite and I need to shut up and leave the nice man alone.” Tim studied Jeff’s face for a response; it was suddenly Tim’s greatest fear that he’d turned what had essentially been a _friendship_ with accompanying blowjobs into an epic romance. But Jeff only looked as he had been: steady, sorry, worried. “Maybe you’ve,” Tim stopped, unable to explain himself in a way that didn’t sound utterly pathetic. “Anyway, that’s all I’d really care to tell you. But, um--"

Whether Jeff had anticipated Tim's want, or simply acted on his own desires--it didn't quite matter. He engulfed Tim in a hug--a little too strongly, so he loosened his grip at the first pained wheeze that parted Tim's lips. His grip slackened and Tim leaned into the space afforded to him. He rested against Jeff's coat, which was clean but old-smelling, like something repurposed, and not at all like Tim's own coat, which was new but spotted with bloodstains. Tim’s forehead touched just under Jeff’s jaw and along his neck, which Tim would always remember as kissable when clean-shaven, but just as well not. 

He breathed Jeff in and filled his hands with the excess fabric at Jeff’s back. It was just that, though--fabric, a skin that wasn’t Jeff’s, wasn’t warm or real. Tim squeezed a little tighter, finding that even pressed against him, Jeff felt good against his bruises. 

With his long arms and the advantage of Tim’s slim-fitting coat, Jeff had more options. He curled one arm around Tim, intimately and in a way he’d only done during their impromptu wrestling matches. Jeff smoothed a bare hand into the fuzzy hairs at Tim's neck and brushed the shell of an ear with his thumb. The flesh was red and sensitive from the cold, and Tim felt as though every blood vessel and every cell was responding to Jeff’s touch.

They didn’t kiss, which Tim supposed was just as well. If his lips had felt anything like his ear when Jeff touched it, he wouldn’t have wanted to stop.

When they parted, they didn’t linger. Hands returned to pockets and cold noses dug into turned-up coat collars. 

"Cool, thanks," Tim said awkwardly, never having thanked anyone for a hug before. Some saving grace kept him from giving a thumbs-up.

Jeff took in a long breath and nodded. “Can we have the rest of this conversation in your car? I’m freezing my nuts off.”

“That’s all I have to say,” Tim admitted, pushing off from his SUV, smiling a little as he did. He remembered that Jeff once told him the heater in his truck hadn’t worked since 2001. "But there’s a guy here I want you to meet.”

\- 

Raylan remembered the days when _he_ went traipsing off and left the other Marshals clueless to his whereabouts, yet nonetheless meant to cover his ass. Rachel would sort through the shit on his desk and in five minutes would know where’d he’d gone, and to what end. Raylan would start a shoot-out, Tim would end it. 

Those were good days.

Instead of fulfilling his potential, Raylan was _again_ pouring over state and regional databases, starting _again_ with acquaintances Weaver and Tanner might have accumulated. As much as Raylan’s world was settled in the hills of Kentucky, he’d had to remember that people from all over tripped and fell into this place. There was a whole criminal watershed that drained into Kentucky, it seemed, and although it was slow work, by branching out to neighboring states Raylan was finding some success in putting names to faces. 

When his office phone rang, Raylan was already annoyed to lose his concentration. When the caller immediately posed a question to which Raylan had no answer, he was further put on edge.

_“Is Tim okay?”_

“Do you have a couple hours?” Raylan pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at Rachel, not willing to believe she actually wanted to take part in this dance. He did some quick googling and turned his computer monitor--baring a high-resolution image of Robb Stark--to face Rachel. “Why,” Raylan finally gave in, “What’s up?”

“He just... bought me a car.” 

_”Come again?”_

“Er--no, that’s not quite it,” Jeff assured him and then, like he was piecing together a mystery, Jeff gave a short rundown of events: “He had me meet him at a car dealership, we talked, he waved over the guy who owned the place, and _then_ he got me a great deal on a Jeep Wrangler. I mean, _it’s fucking beautiful._ I traded my truck in and paid for the rest. It’s amazing. But--what the hell? Who does that? I drove off the lot in it.” Jeff sounded excited by the end of his tale, just as Raylan had concluded the matter was not as insane as it seemed. 

“Sounds to me like he really liked you, Jeff.” Raylan said as diplomatically as he could manage while waving off Rachel’s concerned stare. The off-color joke he’d told Tim about wishing he had friends like Jeff came to mind, and Raylan supposed, instead, he ought to be glad to have a friend like Tim.

(Raylan was nonetheless caught off guard with this development; Tim was still Tim, and therefore not the most sociable of beings. How he managed to have [presumably] stuffy FBI friends, [evidently] gracious car dealership friends, _and_ [Medieval Times-looking] bartender friends escaped the realm of possibility, in Raylan’s estimation. It cranked his bullshit detector up to 11.) 

“Shit--listen,” Jeff repositioned the phone, turning his back to some noise. Raylan supposed he was calling from his bar. “I need to be serious for a minute. I went home with him that first night, after you two had been drinking, and--”

“Let me stop you there,” Raylan drawled. “I really don’t think Tim wants me knowing anymore of his business--bereft, though I am, of the salacious details.”

Over the line, Raylan could practically hear the frown of disapproval. 

“It wasn’t like that,” Jeff said, sounding affronted. “He was really out of it--all weekend it was nothing but... he was really sick.”

Something not unlike distrust hung in the pauses of Jeff’s answer. 

“He seemed fine coming back to work,” Raylan said, leaning forward in interest. “I just assumed you two had...” Raylan made a hand gesture Rachel frowned at. 

_“Conducted an orchestra?”_ Raylan heard her mumble. 

“No,” Jeff was answering in his ear. “God no. Not until a while later. And even then... We were just fooling around. I mean, it was great. _Tim’s_ great.”

“Still not my business,” Raylan pressed.

Jeff huffed--something part laugh, part exasperation. “Anyway--he wasn’t doing so well. I just wanted to make sure you’d keep an eye on him? Especially today... he seemed a little wired.”

Although it wasn’t a task Raylan felt particularly confident in completing, he agreed nonetheless. At the very least, he supposed he’d see Tim later that afternoon. Maybe he’d stumble while taking a flight of stairs two steps at a time and Raylan could slip in a quick, _You okay there, partner?_ before Tim’s immediate, _Fine, fine,_ and feel confident in a job well done. “Sure. Now, this Daddy Warbucks routine he pulled--it _just_ happened, or--?”

“About two hours ago,” Jeff said, ignoring the slight. 

“Huh.” Raylan glanced at Tim’s long-empty desk. 

On the other line, Jeff sounded equally curious. “He said he was headed back to work.”

“I’ll kept an eye out for him. Thanks, Robb.”

“Excuse me?”

“You misheard. Bye.” 

Hanging up the phone, Raylan swivelled in his chair to face Rachel, who had returned to the kind of work that altered names and faces on Kentucky top-ten most wanted lists. “Please tell me,” he began tiredly, “That Tim left you a notarized letter telling you where he’s gone, and then attached a hand-drawn map leading to his exact location.”

Rachel lobbed Raylan a look as deadly as a mortar. “He’s getting worse than you.”

“Excuse me?” Gesturing with both hands over his desk Raylan corrected, “According to _someone_ I as good as spell out my secrets with macaroni and glitter.” 

Rachel shrugged a shoulder and turned back to her work. There was no silky top, today; her suit was stone gray and her shirt, a dull blue. “No one expects him to fuck up.”

“And he won’t, Rachel.” Raylan crowded her desk, so as to keep their discussion quiet, conspiratorial. His knees bumped her side. “In all this... he hasn’t.”

“You’re wrong,” Rachel said. “Both of you. You think it’s a sign of strength to do this Lone Ranger thing? Tim should have asked for help. Taken the blow to his pride and done something other than lie to his friends and himself and--“

“Tim’s made the tough decisions--”

“Tim’s made other peoples’ tough decisions.” Rachel rebuffed curtly. “And he’s only done what’s expedient for him.” 

The phone on Rachel’s desk rang and she answered it in her crisp, no-nonsense tone. After listening for a time, she said, “Yes, I’ll hold.” 

Raylan took the opportunity to return fire and rebuild Tim’s name a little in the process. “He broke up with his boyfriend and apologized for all his shit,” he said. “That’s something.”

Covering the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand, Rachel countered, “He needs to stop apologizing and start explaining himself.” 

Raylan frowned. “It’s the same thing.” 

“It _really_ isn’t.” Returning to her phone call, Rachel listened, jotting something down, and thanked the caller. "We've got a line on Mike Wozzen's cell," she said, rising from her chair and grabbing her coat. If there was an argument to be made for Tim’s behavior--from _Raylan_ of all people--she wasn’t going to hear it. "Let's run it down."

\- 

Tim sat down in a corner booth at a burger joint around noon. It was a place that had come highly recommended by Raylan, and while Tim had doubted the quality of any outfit established along the road to Harlan, the place looked promising. It was far enough off the Interstate to suggest that the spread of truckers wasn’t due to convenience, but by design. Better still, the place smelled like food, not people. Tim situated himself so that he could watch the goings-on of the entire restaurant--counter, seating area, and door included.

When a cute waitress with a stained apron and a side-ponytail bounced up to his table and--to amend for her blatant staring at Tim’s discolored face--said, “Cute hat. Can I say that to a cop?” Tim grinned and ordered a burger. The waitress smiled back and when she did, the white scar just under her eye nearly disappeared into her dark skin. 

Tim removed coat and his U.S. Marshals logo hat, too; he’d planned to wait outside the place in the sunshine, but the cold drove him indoors. Believing Boyd Crowder to be a prompt lunch guest was, he supposed, just another symptom of his budding insanity. Tim reread the email he’d received from Woz and chatted with the waitress until she was needed, again, at the register. 

Tim’s watching of the door finally paid off; his expected visitor arrived, but his dark eyes were clearly scanning the room for someone else. 

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Boyd lied when he happened upon Tim, and only Tim. He untwisted his scarf and shed his coat, regardless. “I was expecting Raylan.”

Which meant, Tim knew, that Boyd thought Tim had made the call on Raylan’s behalf. Tim didn’t like either implication: that Raylan couldn’t be bothered to make his own shitty phone calls, or that Tim was jumping at the bit to do Raylan’s bidding. 

“Raylan’s got explosive diarrhea,” Tim deadpanned, despite knowing it wasn’t with Raylan that his offense ought to lie. “So the honor of hauling ass all the way out here fell to me. What have you got?”

Tim’s meal arrived just then, giving Boyd time to deflect. 

“A mighty strong desire for what you’re having, actually. Miss?” Boyd twisted around to call to the waitress, but Tim had him beat. He pushed his untouched burger across the table. 

“My treat.”

Boyd smiled big and wide, in a way an animal might bare its teeth in warning. “That’s mighty generous of you, son.”

Tim didn’t take the warning to heart. “Stalling is a mighty interesting way of sharing information.”

Like they were girlfriends meeting up for a lunch date in some hellish _Sex and the City_ spin-off, Boyd leaned forward over the table, interested. “You know, I never asked after your health.”

Tim’s expression didn’t alter; he still looked calm, collected, and wholly disinterested. “No, you ran your mouth and gave me shit about it. What Jesus would have done, I’m sure.”

Just as quick, Boyd eased back and put some distance between himself and Tim. “I don’t believe in god anymore,” he said.

“Neither do I, but I don’t take it as free reign to be an asshole.”

Boyd lifted the top bun of the burger and inspected its insides. Tim had never been very picky about what he ate, so it came loaded with everything--except mayo. “I served in Desert Storm, you know.”

Tim watched Boyd pick through the burger. “Demolitions, yeah. Raylan mentioned it.”

Boyd smiled fondly. “It’s the little things like suspecting me of kidnapping and intent to do grievous harm that tell me he cares.”

“The phrase is intent to kill.”

“I do so love learning new things.” 

“Hey. Talk and eat,” Tim instructed. He had one arm on the table, following the curve of the table and booth. The other was sat on the weapon at his hip. 

Boyd quirked his eyebrows and pointed down at the meal with a curled index finger. “Ain’t this supposed to be a steak?”

“Have you got names for me or not, Mr. Crowder?” Tim glanced at the watch face fit snug along the inside of his wrist. He was wasting time here. “ _Talk and eat._ ”

“This is one hell of a cheeseburger, Marshal,” Boyd said, doing both. “Goddamn, this may just about be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Don’t tell my lady.” Boyd winked and Tim smiled falsely, like he meant to laugh, but the expression fell from his face, leaving him looking unimpressed and exasperated. 

“How ‘bout you, son? Best meal of your life?”

“Your lady,” Tim answered dryly. 

Boyd laughed like Tim couldn’t, and returned to his lunch. 

_Blue crab in Bahrain_ would have been Tim’s honest answer, but he wanted to stray from anything that might endear himself to Boyd. He’d seen the relationship struck between Boyd and Raylan, given their shared history in the Harlan County mines, and Tim didn’t want to get himself entangled in that shitstorm. 

When Boyd--still managing to yammer on--had made a healthy dent in the burger and took a respite to move on to the fries, Tim stood to leave. “If not hearing any more of your bullshit means I drove two hours to buy you a sandwich, so be it. What a steal.”

The door to the restaurant opened and Tim glanced at it out of habit. Getting answers out of Boyd took precedence and Tim readied himself to issue his first of many threats. 

The newcomer, it seemed, had no regard for Tim’s plans. 

He crossed the place quickly and approached the register where Tim’s waitress was focused on something on the table--receipts, maybe. The man grabbed a large handful of her work uniform (a small pink tee, another reason Tim supposed Raylan liked this place) and jerked her forward to face him. She yelped and her eyes widened. Tim looked over his shoulder and saw a shiny silver gun encased in the man’s other meaty fist. Quickly, he scanned the room; not everyone had heard the waitress’ scream, but Tim didn’t doubt there were some armed patrons. Any wild shot could hit the girl, so Tim had to act fast. 

“You armed?” Tim asked, low enough for only Boyd to hear, and respond to in the affirmative. “So back me up.”

Tim turned, whipped out his piece and leveled it straight towards the man’s head. “Deputy U.S. Marshals,” he said loudly. “Sir, lower your weapon or my partner here will shoot.”

The man turned to face him, but kept his gun and other hand on the girl. _Deja,_ Tim knew, because he’d read the plastic name tag wearing a hole in her tiny pink tee. 

For the first time in a long time, Tim looked into the eyes of someone who sought to do him harm. Usually, he was the threat the target never saw coming. It was a different animal, sniping. Easier in some ways, soul-destroying in others. Tim wasn’t as well versed in standoff etiquette as Raylan, although Tim tended to think of it in terms of flat tires. Raylan could change a busted tire in a minute flat. It was all muscle memory and honed technique. 

A quick fix or not, Raylan was still the driver careening again and again over nails and glass, blowing out tires. 

The man started to breathe heavily and as he eased the gun off of Deja and onto Tim, he moved his over hand to encase her throat. Tim thought about the scar under her eye. 

Sniping, stand-offs, abuse, whatever--everything extra fell away. Faced with the scratched muzzle of a pistol, there was little differentiation to be made between anything other than life and death. 

Tim didn’t waver. 

He didn’t shoot, either. With a gun pointed shakily at his person, he had cause and no-one would fault him, but Tim figured the man came in angry with the girl. If he wasn’t going to shoot her with the gun he’d brought, it wasn’t likely he was going to shoot Tim.

Tim’s bruised fingers were not so swollen that he couldn’t pull, if needed. Keeping them crooked was a discomfort, nonetheless, so again--Tim ordered the man to lower his weapon. “I’ve got a busy day planned, so if you cooperate now, you’ll have locals on your ass, not a slew of guys like me.”

The man tightened his grip on his gun and gestured roughly, like he planned to throw the thing at Tim’s head. “Guys like you. Federals?”

“Yep.” Tim could breathe a little easier; he pegged the guy as a hard case--dangerous, but not because he was smart and cruel. He was an impassioned, angry brute. The worst Tim had to worry was that he’d throw his weight around. 

The man wet his lips and breathed heavily from his mouth. Deja was practically forgotten in his grip. “What’s, like--the difference?” 

Tim’s face screwed up in annoyance. He took a bold step forward and practically shouted down at the man, “ _The difference is you don’t haggle with Federals, shitstain!_ ” 

The man did lower his gun, slightly. Tim closed in on him and gritted out, _“On the ground”_ one last time. 

The man released the waitress and set the gun on the counter. He shifted his weight onto his knees, but was awful slow about it. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Tim grunted, gun still trained on the man. With the flat of his boot, Tim helped him find the floor a little faster.

Quickly, Tim reached for his side and pulled the set of cuffs he kept strung through a leather patch on his gun holster. It made for a heavier appliance, but Tim found that--now and again--they could prove useful. He wrenched the man’s arms back and cuffed him tight, knee pressing between the man’s shoulder blades as he worked to ensure the guy wouldn’t take a second run at things. 

There was a smattering of applause for Tim when the man was secured. Some part of Tim’s mind wished for Raylan’s company; he’d eat this shit up. 

Glancing up at the girl, Tim asked, “You okay?” 

Tears were welling in Deja’s eyes but she blinked them back. Her shirt was torn neck-to-armpit where she had struggled against the man’s grip, and her neck was likely to be in awful pain. When she regained some sense of propriety, she recited a series of numbers and a name in a voice that shook not with fear, but with anger. 

A case number, Tim realized. Hers.

“This is three times he’s broken the restraining order,” she said, tugging at her shirt. Tim caught a glimpse of her bra, which was chocolate brown with pink polka-dots. He wondered if she’d got it to match her top. “The police done nothing about it. Goddamnit. _This is where I work._ ” 

Another waitress rushed to Deja’s side and embraced her. 

“Partner,” Tim said, turning his head to find that Boyd had smartly returned his piece down the back of his jeans. “Sit on him a minute, will you?” 

Tim gave the order for the restaurant-goers to sit tight. One of the patrons had already called the police, so Tim took his time hearing Deja’s case information and details of the police department that failed to protect her.

“I don’t need protection from the police,” Deja’s said angrily. “Or I _wouldn’t_ if they’d take this seriously.” She wiped under her eye to catch an errant tear and was careful not to smear her mascara. “ _Jesus God,_ this is the last time I ever date a white boy.”

“We all gotta learn not to date white boys,” Tim agreed. Deja gave a laugh-sob and covered her face, embarrassed. 

“Your burger’s free,” she said.

“I wasn’t gonna ask,” Tim smirked. 

Tim pocketed her information and passed her off to another officer once back-up arrived. For a time, Tim was blissfully unaware of Boyd Crowder and the stream of constant shit flowing his way. He gave himself up to the procedural element of things, giving his statement and couching it in the kind of speech he knew would get the matter processed and done. _Can I get your name and badge number? I’d like to follow up, make sure I’m available when the ex-boyfriend there is in court. Ought to be soon, huh? Holidays and shit. Fast track it, will you?_

Deja rode to the police station with Tim’s assurance that he’d look into her case, lean on some people where he could. 

Outside, Boyd approached Tim only after the locals had left; he was at least practical in some matters. Sounding unimpressed, Boyd leveled a flat echoing of Tim’s threat. “ _I’ll_ shoot?”

“Didn’t want him aiming at me,” Tim reasoned, looking at Boyd like he’d never seen a greater idiot. “I got shit to do today, in case that’s escaped you. Pictures, names--have you got anything worth my time?” Tim’s voice was low and heavy in its usual drawl, and seemingly untouched by the kind of cold that would make any man’s teeth chatter. 

It seemed untouched, too, by all the excitement--Deja and the gunman, the potential hostage situation of a restaurant full of people. Tim only donned his hat again for cover under the mid-afternoon sun. “Feel like I’m getting fleeced, here. I can’t imagine Raylan’d be this patient.”

“He wouldn’t,” Boyd agreed. He’d donned his scarf, twisted and stuck it inside his jacket so that Tim initially mistook it for a wooly ascot. 

“Then consider me his proxy,” Tim said. “And understand that I am equally impatient.”

Boyd smiled a little and nodded his head in the direction of his parked truck. Tim followed, cautiously optimistic. Boyd hopped in and leaned over the seat to fetch a white folder from the glove compartment. He spared a moment’s hesitation before handing the folder to Tim. “A picture’s worth a thousand words, you know.”

“I’m just looking for about two, three words each.” Tim drawled, not in the mood for theatrics. “Or did you mean dollars? I don’t have to reimburse you for the Kinkos run, do I?”

Boyd grinned with all 32 of his Army-issued, blazingly white teeth which got Tim thinking the Army could make a killing saddling up with Crest toothpaste and showing off Boyd’s set. The new flavor could be green, taste like mint, and be billed as _Army strong._

“Naw, I’ll foot that bill. Consider it a favor to Raylan.”

Tim was already flipping through the grainy images. “I will consider it.” 

\- 

Unaware of Tim’s misadventure, Rachel and Raylan were hot on the trail of one of their own.

“There,” Rachel said, indicating a blonde-haired man with a creeping neck tattoo, smoking against the wall of an Outback Steakhouse. She’d called Woz’s number again and of all the people they’d observed answering their cell phones in the area, only this man looked equally perturbed and annoyed. He was also the only man, the pair noted, with busted knuckles.

“I think he’s packing,” Raylan said, breaking away. “I’ll circle ‘round. You chat him up.”

“If he’s armed, why don’t _you_ chat him up?”

“He’s seen my face. Hell, he’s probably punched it.”

Raylan kept close to the building and disappeared into an ally. Rachel waited and gave Raylan time to get into position before ambling up to the stranger and cocking her head in interest.

“Can I bum one?” she asked, trying to will her expression into one of innocence as the man looked up from the stolen phone, frowning. 

“I promised my boyfriend I wouldn’t, but,” Rachel smiled cheekily. “He’s an asshole.” 

“Buy your own,” the man huffed, still preoccupied with his phone. 

Undeterred, Rachel inched closer and smiled, breaking the glossy bow of her lips with a flash of white teeth. “I never smoke alone,” she said, hoping her tone passed for _flirting._ It had been a long time since she’d had any practice. 

Her ploy worked. The man rolled his eyes but was quick to fetch her a cigarette and light it for her. Rachel took one ceremonial puff, only knowing how because she’d watched Shawnee light up so often. 

“What else don’t you do alone?” the man asked with a grin. 

Rachel knew it was her solemn duty to crush the confidence of any man with such a shitty neck tattoo, but until Raylan made his move, she had to play along. 

“I guess you’d have to ask my boyfriend,” she said, issuing a playful hip-check. 

“I don’t see him around,” the man countered. He took a long drag and then added, “Lady, I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you are _shit-hot beautiful._ ” 

Raylan took that moment to appear from behind the corner, cover afforded to him by the man’s interest in Rachel. 

“Hello,” Raylan said, gripping the man’s shoulder and shoving him face-first into the brick wall. He wrenched the cell phone from his hand and pocketed it. “U.S. Marshals. “Sir, you are under arrest for possession of stolen U.S. military property.”

The man balked. “It’s an iPhone!”

“It’s the government’s iPhone, son.”

Raylan turned up the man’s coat and wrestled the wallet from his pocket. 

“You ain’t got a search warrant for nothing!” 

“Oh, shit, Joshua Steven Meritt, blonde hair, brown eyes, 5’11”, I’m awful sorry. I thought this empty wallet was a block of heroin. Silly me.” Raylan folded the wallet and stuffed it back into Meritt’s jeans.

“You took your sweet time,” Rachel mumbled, finding and confiscating the man’s glock, and then putting her badge on display to assuage the concerns of passersby. 

“‘Shit-hot beautiful,’” Raylan cackled. 

In that moment--as Raylan wheezed in enough air to sputter out again in laughter--Meritt managed to twist out of the Deputy Marshal’s hold and land a wild punch that clipped Raylan on the chin. Raylan’s head bounced against the brick wall with an ugly _thwak_ sound. He swore and scrambled to restrain Meritt--but there was no need. Rachel moved in and took the fist that had collided with Raylan, pulled Meritt from the wall and simultaneously struck and rotated his right elbow out of its socket. 

Meritt screamed out but Rachel took no notice; she merely wrenched back both of his arms and cuffed his wrists together. 

“Damnit, Rachel,” Raylan was squinting, grimacing, and bleeding--slightly. Slammed against the brick wall, he’d scraped off some skin above his eyebrow and now appeared to match Tim. “Now we’ve got to listen to him screaming the entire drive back to Lexington.” 

“Take me to a hospital!” Meritt wailed. 

“Nothing’s broken,” Rachel scoffed. _“Yet.”_ When she and Raylan made it to Raylan’s town car with their suspect in tow, Rachel seemed genuinely concerned after Raylan’s health. “That was a pretty hard knock,” she said. “Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” Raylan said, sounding more embarrassed now than sore. “It’s camouflaged by all my other beatings.”

Meritt was sat in the backseat of the car, still crying out, but Raylan had to take a moment to hand it to his partner: “That was pretty cool.”

\- 

Back in the office, Meritt was stuck in the conference room. Raylan taped a post-it to the door reading _ocupado_. The lack of ceremony made it clear to Meritt that he hadn’t actually been arrested. Not as stupid as he looked, he took mind not to call for a lawyer.

Shortly after Raylan fixed himself another ice pack, Tim returned with Boyd in tow. Boyd gave unnecessarily loud assurance that he could identify the man as the one firing off shots in Johnny’s bar. Still, the news didn’t do much for Raylan, who received Boyd with a flat look. 

“He followed me home,” Tim said, speaking up for Boyd if only because he’d done as ordered in the restaurant debacle. “Can we keep him?” 

Raylan traded his ice pack for the file Rachel was putting together on Meritt. “No, son, he’s probably got worms.” 

“Well, he’s going to help identify our friends,” Tim said, taking a hard stand for Boyd’s inclusion. Then, Tim clapped Raylan on the shoulder. “But really, I think he just misses you.” 

Raylan rolled his eyes and walked along with Tim, leaving Rachel to handle Boyd. 

“We found Woz’s phone.” Raylan pointed toward the conference room, where--even with his back turned to Tim and all other onlookers--it was evident the suspect was cradling his arm in a sling. 

“And you broke his arm because he was placing long-distance calls and data roaming, _the bastard._ ” 

Raylan brushed a hand subconsciously over the new bandage obscuring his brow. “Rachel did that, actually.” 

Tim lolled his head back and closed his eyes, looking for all the world to have fallen into a state of near-orgasmic bliss. “Oh my god,” he said, low, wet, and gravelly. “She is so cool.” 

Eyeing the suspect from outside the conference room, Tim mumbled to Raylan that he didn’t recognize Meritt from the night before. Raylan, who didn’t get a good look at his attackers, shrugged. They started to forge a plan.

“It’s stupid, though, right?” 

“Oh, yeah. It’s bad.”

“Shit.”

Rachel came to stand behind the two, staring in at the man she’d rendered into a blubbering mess. “Maybe he was driving.”

Tim’s jaw set with an audible click. 

Rachel made a face sympathetic to the pain. 

“Your genius wounds me,” Tim observed. He clapped her on the arm in thanks, then let himself into the conference room. 

Meritt lifted his head slightly, then completely, until he was staring straight ahead at Tim. Tim knew it was stupid to feel threatened--Rachel had put the guy’s arm in a sling, after all--but something went cold in his gut. It was some kind of _literally_ polar opposite response he felt when drinking and achieving that warm, heavy feeling of alcohol on an empty stomach. Tim willed himself into a seat at the table, and brought that chilly, sinking feeling with him. 

“I know you,” Meritt said. 

Tim returned flatly, “I know you, too.” 

He was one of the men from the mountaintop--Tim recognized his voice--and the simple exchange was enough to cement the connection in Tim’s mind. Meritt couldn’t hide his association--he’d gone and assured it.

Tim knew, however, that a flimsy identification wasn’t what he was after; he needed to place the man at the bloodbath at Kyle Clemens’ cousin’s place, connect him to the others who were there, and ideally corner one of the men who didn’t pull--Tim figured there were at least two--and get someone to flip details. They needed actual names, car makes and models, associations--the kind of information they could build a case on, with or without the kidnapping charges. 

Knowing this, Tim didn’t push his threat level beyond an easy smile and a cool, _“And I’m gonna get to know your friends.”_

In his seat across from the man at the conference table, Tim clicked a pen and began to write slowly and neatly (as well as he could manage, anyway) on a legal pad. He did this for a few minutes before beginning to ask the occasional question.

“Who is it you’re taking orders from?” Tim asked pleasantly, taking a pause in his writing. “Who tells you when to kick up your heels, haul ass outta a bar, and kill or kidnap people?”

“I ain’t fuckin’ saying,” Meritt replied, equally pleasant.

Tim nodded agreeably. “I’ll just put an ‘X’ then.”

He wrote for a time longer until he posed a question for Meritt: “You know Charlie Weaver and Robert Tanner?” 

Meritt didn’t answer, but Tim’s question did at least interrupt a long string of Meritt’s showy splicing of what he remembered of the U.S. Constitution from high school, and reruns of _Law & Order_ on weekday mornings. 

“You knew ‘em, I mean. Maybe you were friends, maybe you grew up next door to one another, drank your Ovaltine together. Maybe you did a stint with Weaver in 2004, for a B&E down in Georgia. Maybe you don’t get much closer’n cell mates.” 

When Tim smiled, the cut in his lip flexed and strained what the cells were--again--knitting back together. There was an actual tear to the flesh, this time, and it showed a little sliver extra of teeth and mouth. 

“Thing is,” Tim continued, “I killed them both. I killed Rob Tanner with one shot, right between the eyes,” Tim gestured on himself with his index finger exactly where he’d placed the bullet, “And then I killed your buddy Charlie. I dropped him, bashed his skull in.” Tim quirked another smile. “Now, I’ve never done a thing like that. But I’ve been to war and back and people like to assume you’ve dug your thumbs into a few eye sockets and macheted off the odd arm or leg.” 

Tim half-mimed the acts and Meritt watched him. 

“No one here gave it a second thought, really.” Tim laughed, as if suddenly giddy with the entire string of events, how they’d panned out rather simply for him. “That’s weird, huh? That they’d trust me to sit in there alone with you, after what I done to your buddies. They must not give a shit. Spending cuts, all that. Paperwork is cheap. And, hell--see for yourself.” Tim threw an arm out to indicate the space beyond the conference room, the slew of empty desks. “There’s maybe, what? Six people working here? This is a federal office and we take our government ensured holiday time seriously.”

Raylan entered the room, then, with both Meritt and Woz’s cell phones in hand. “It’s gotta ring sometime.”

“You’re the guy who blew Tommy Bucks away,” Meritt said, confirming his earlier suspicions with a better look at the Deputy Marshal. “Your friend here is takin’ all the credit for Rob and Charlie.” 

It was the first time he’d confirmed his associations with either man, and both Tim and Raylan made a mental note of it.

“Rightfully so,” Raylan said after a beat. “Put a bullet between Rob’s eyes and smashed in Charlie’s head. Craziest shit I’d seen in awhile.” 

Raylan kicked back a seat next to Meritt, playing up the vigilante cowboy angle, if that’s what got Meritt talking. “And if you know about Tommy Bucks, you know I’m a bit of a shitstirrer, myself. But _this kid,_ ” Raylan raised an accusatory finger to Tim, who frowned and pretended not to appreciate the acknowledgement, despite recognizing Raylan’s play. “This kid is fucked up. We were outside some shitty Harlan bar not too long ago, tracking some fellas we believe left something of a bloodbath out just south of here. I was sitting back in the car and this guy had his sniper rifle out, ready to pick our fellas off at the first sight of a stir.” 

Meritt looked wary at that, but his face wasn’t riddled with concern for long. One of the two phones placed on the table began to ring--his. 

Raylan glanced at Tim. Undoubtedly, they hadn’t had the time they’d have liked to work the guy over, but they had to make their play. Raylan pulled his gun from its holster and kept it low. Tim turned the legal pad to face Meritt and pointed to a block of text. “You’ll say what I’ve got written here, or my friend’s gun will misfire.” The cut in Tim’s lip strained under another giddy smile. “It’ll be a terrible fuckin’ mess.”

With his free hand, Raylan answered the call and put it on speaker. Only with a hard jab of his glock into the soft of the man’s side did Meritt wet his lips and turn his eyes to the paper.

\- 

“All right,” Raylan said, following Tim out of the conference room and closing the door behind him. “Inevitable suspensions garnered. What next?”

“Supposed meeting supposedly set,” Tim said, finding an audience only in Rachel, as Boyd had left after peering through the binder Raylan had assembled, and offering his input there. “But it’s total bullshit.” 

“He didn’t give himself over to the performance,” Raylan agreed.

Tim sat on the window ledge just behind Rachel’s desk space. Raylan and Rachel took their own seats and the three began cobbling together a plan. 

“I don’t like what I’m seeing here,” Art said warily as he approached the trio. Earlier, he’d stayed in his office, hardly given the whole business in the conference room a second glance. Now, however, he pulled up an extra chair and bridged the space between Raylan and Rachel’s desks. He was sat directly opposite of Tim. 

“I don’t think a closer look will relieve your concerns,” Rachel admitted. 

“And you heard that from the good one,” Tim added lowly. He hoped Art would excuse himself from his Deputies’ plans and choose instead to keep above the fray. 

He didn’t, of course, so the Deputies took care to catch him up as they planned their next move. Being unable to hold Meritt indefinitely became part of the ploy; he’d leave and warn the others that the U.S. Marshal Service was gunning for them. 

“And that’s fine,” Raylan voiced. “We don’t need to convince the others to meet up, only convince ‘em we were serious about doing so.”

This would--ideally--alarm some of the guys, make them want to scatter. What was needed, then, was the assurance of a voice of authority telling them to meet someplace else, because he’d gotten wind of this thing _(and it’s bad, man, real bad)_ and needed to get his guys out safely. 

Rachel looked unimpressed. “So your plan is to track down _Wynn Duffy,_ press him to gather up the guys you’ve got in your sights, with the intention of using him to dole out a fake escape?” She smoothed a hand over her hair in a way that reminded Tim of Raylan. “Does your plan involve blindfolding them at a children’s birthday party and leading them into a bouncy castle, too? But the sides fall away and really--it’s the county jail?”

Tim nodded agreeably. “That’s a good idea and I suggest we get started on it for next week’s madcap adventure,” Tim made sure to avoid Art while speaking; he’d already promised the Chief this business would soon be over. “But I can’t paint scenery so good, so we’ll have to pass.” 

“Pity,” Art said. He smoothed his hands over his bald head, leaned back in his seat, and gave the matter some thought. “This whole operation depends on Wynn Duffy playing ball with you, and not stealing all your toys afterwards.”

Raylan nodded absently. “Duffy is a piece of steaming shit, but he knows what’s good for him. And all us nosing around ain’t good for business. Would you invite Tim to a coke party? No, he’d bring the whole mood down.”

“Sooo,” Tim drawled, eyeing Raylan while Art eyed him. “Should we go, then? Ensure the future success of Wynn Duffy’s coke parties?”

“That’s the oath I took as a Deputy U.S. Marshal,” Raylan said, standing and sighing. 

It didn’t escape either Marshal that Art--maintaining his silence--nevertheless watched them depart. 

\- 

When they finally found Wynn Duffy’s RV--technically, it was a work expense purchase filed under _Duffy Security_ \--parked illegally over three spaces in a lot, it was like a shining white beacon. 

“You changed overpasses,” Raylan said by way of a greeting to Duffy’s bodyguard, Mike, who opened the door while Raylan and Tim were still just approaching. 

Duffy slithered in beside Mike and occupied the space at the door. “Sunlight comes in nicer through the windows, here,” he explained. “Although the view leaves something to be desired.”

Duffy was dressed in slacks and a crisp blue oxford shirt--but no jacket, meaning his likely kept his RV warm. Mike inexplicably wore a sharp suit. The shirt collar was unbuttoned and pulled apart like he had a penchant for the 70s style, but none of the courage required to take up the polyester. 

“Some of your boys are loose,” Raylan said, squinting up against that sunshine Duffy seemed to favor. 

“I don’t run a summer camp, Raylan.” 

“Well I guess that’s good, considering we put a couple down like dogs.” Raylan turned his attention to Mike. “We gotta speak with Duffy. Why don’t you take a walk.”

A bright smile broke under Duffy’s perfectly sculpted mustache. “Why don’t we all come in from the cold, hm? Raylan, who’s your friend?”

“We’ve met,” Tim answered before Raylan could. “Remember? You lied to me about knowing a Fletcher Nix.”

“I am terribly sorry, Deputy,” Duffy all but _cooed,_ “The name must have slipped my mind.” 

They were all stood in the RV, which Raylan had to admit was pleasantly roomy. Duffy was bathed in sunlight while Raylan soaked in only the beams that eeked in from above Duffy’s crown of blonde hair. Tim and Mike were positioned opposite of each other, both ready to back their partner’s play. 

“We’re anticipating you having a better memory, today,” Raylan said, trying for Tim’s sake to reign in his temper and play nice. “These fucks are running around, pulling shit with your name plastered on their backs. They are on your team, Duffy.”

“How about I give you the team roster, then?” 

It struck Raylan that, for as much as a problem the U.S. Marshal service could become for the Dixie Mafia, they might only run a tight race against the crime conglomerate’s new, bumbling employment. 

“It’s a start,” Raylan said, willing to take what he could get, as he did not expect Duffy to be compliant much longer. “But we got a job for you. Sound familiar?”

“A job,” Duffy echoed dully. 

“Yeah, you know,” Tim spoke up, sounding completely _over_ the plan to meet some small-time crime lord in his sweltering hot tin can on wheels. “A job. Like turning over a Denny’s ‘cause the dishwasher is selling skunk on your turf.” 

Duffy lobbed his head over to look at Mike, who’d moved to place himself between Raylan and his boss. “As if Denny’s has a dishwasher. Am I right?” 

“These guys you’ve hired,” Raylan began, again striving for calm, “Are more trouble than they’re worth. You’re here, now, wasting time and effort trying to paper over their first fuck-up, not to mention their subsequent fuck-ups. And there have been many.” 

Tim didn’t bat an eye as Mike and Duffy shifted their attention to him. 

Raylan brought Duffy back on point with an attack that always landed: business. “Anyway, according to Boyd Crowder, his business _ain’t hurting none._ So what’s the point? Get rid of these guys. _Allow us to help._ What’s it matter to you?”

Raylan had Duffy’s attention, so chose not to waste it. “You make a call. You place them where we say, wash your hands of them, and we all win. You can turn around and tell all the higher-ups who thought up this shitty employment plan that it was a fuckin’ teachable moment. They’ll see that they should keep their business in fewer, more capable hands.”

“Mine,” Duffy intoned, explicitly putting himself in Raylan’s plans so that the Deputy knew to recognize him as a player, not just a pawn. 

Duffy was a good businessman, and shrewd enough that crime or banking were--really and truly--his only worthy options. He smoothed his shirt front and nodded agreeably at Raylan. His focus was brief, however.

“Let’s you and me discuss this,” Duffy said, locking eyes with Tim, who was stood farthest away. “In private.”

Tim’s face opened up just a hair, but to Raylan, the expression was one of absurd interest and genuine surprise. Running down Duffy had been Raylan’s gig _by default._ Tim knew this and didn’t force any ownership over the matter; he’d only gone along, really, because of a desire to simply _keep moving,_ to make and track progress with the case. Stepping in ahead of Raylan and going toe-to-toe with Duffy had never been part of Tim’s plan. 

It showed, too, in Tim’s effort to stall for time and joke. “Are you serious? I can get in on this B-movie dialogue, too?” He pushed off from the slim partition between the driver’s seat and the living area. “Yeah,” he said, laughing softly. “Let’s.” 

Raylan threw Duffy a flat look. “We ain’t got time for your homespun, mafia-on-wheels bullshit. You make that call or we take you in right now.”

“ _Take me in,_ ” Duffy mocked, thinking as little of Raylan’s terminology as he did the threat. “For what?” 

“For parking in a handicapped space,” Raylan snarked. “You fucking idiot, don’t you think I keep a goddamn tally of all the shit you pull? I could put your ass in lock-up a hundred times over. The only reason you’re circling around this parking lot popping wheelies is because _I am allowing it._ You got lawyer friends-- _clients_ \--who owe you a favor? I got a judge who thinks I’m fucking _de-_ lightful. One who trusts my expertise on these matters.” “And goddamnit, Duffy. It’s Christmas.” 

Duffy smiled brightly at Raylan, unafraid, then rested his attention fully with Tim. “You ready to talk, Deputy?” 

Raylan set his jaw. Duffy was angling for a fight, but he and Tim couldn’t afford to have their demands breezed over. Duffy was prepared to play the long game and Raylan’s fuse had always been too short for that. 

And some part of Raylan knew that Tim’s unflappable nature would serve him well and-- _really_ \--Raylan ought to be thankful for the change of plan. It was a very small, easily ignorable part, however, and often overshadowed by the belief that all the shit he had Tim had incurred had been because Raylan walked right into it. 

Raylan didn’t know if he could allow himself to walk right out. 

There was something else that delayed Raylan’s parting: the eager twitch in Tim’s fingers, the alertness awoken in his eyes, and the kind of smirk-smile that looked ready to make the bit in his pink cupids bow bleed like a heartbeat. Raylan wanted to warn Tim that, given the chance, Duffy would eat him alive. 

It was as though Tim heard the warning, because he lobbed Raylan a look that seemed to say, _I’ll bite right back._

“In this set-up?” Tim asked, still a little taken with Raylan’s world of strong arming mob-bosses in winnebagos. “Are we gonna deal over off-brand sodas outta your mini-fridge? How am I supposed to take you seriously? Do you even _have_ an antique tea set?” 

For good measure, Tim even tapped some plywood paneling at one of the cabinets lining the wall. It wasn’t the finest of craftsmanship. 

“This is what I’ve been telling you, Mike,” Duffy said, seemingly commending Tim’s suggestion and eager attitude. He then marvelled at Tim and invited Mike to do the same. “A kindred spirit,” he declared. 

Tim frowned with only his eyebrows; it was practically comical, but the low drawl to his voice drove a serious line through his response: “I don’t think that’s the case until our peckers touch foreskins.” 

“I’m circumcised,” Duffy countered. 

Tim sighed and shrugged, disheartened. “Well forget it, then.” 

The ease Tim had in cracking jokes normally pissed Raylan off, but in this instance he saw it for what it was: Tim’s subtler brand of shitstirring. He didn’t go for broke, like Raylan. He’d play Duffy’s game until the game was played out, and Tim would come away with the better hand. 

“Godspeed, Tim,” Raylan said, throwing up an errant hand in surrender. He lifted his chin and gestured for Mike to head out, first. The bodyguard was clearly wary of the development and remained hesitant even after Duffy dismissed him. 

Tim clapped Mike on the shoulder as he passed and assured him of Duffy, “He’s not my type.” 

The spring-action door to the RV clattered as it closed after Mike and Raylan. 

“That wasn’t nice,” Duffy admonished. He was smirking, and sat down at one side of the small dining table fitted against the sun-drenched side of the RV.

“Oh, shit, and that’s what I was goin’ for.” Tim said, making no effort to join Duffy.

“What is it, exactly, that you want?”

Tim reiterated the plan Raylan had shared, emphasizing the need to ensure the whole group--not just some no-nothings that could be convinced to take the fall--gathered at Duffy’s behest. “We’ll keep your name out of it,” Tim said, not liking the matter but understanding its reason. “Strike those parking violations from your record, too.”

“Aren’t you a prince,” Duffy said. 

“I’m here for you, Mr. Duffy.”

The deal may have been a sure thing, but the promised friendliness was bullshit and both men knew it.

Still, Duffy smiled--considering. It wasn’t an overstatement that the new hires were more trouble than they were worth, and the hiring policy itself a foregone conclusion. _Natural selection_ left a lot of bodies and a lot of questions. It had never been Duffy’s place to voice his concern to those issuing the call, but he was happy, nonetheless, to have his opinion proven out. 

“Done,” he said, sticking out a hand for Tim to shake. Tim didn’t bat an eyelash, let alone extend his hand.

“I’ll believe it when we’re not freezing our asses off, waiting for some assholes who’ve already hit the Interstate.” 

“Not everyone’s out to fuck you, Deputy,” Duffy said, knowingly and cruelly. He kept his hand steady, still wanting Tim to grasp it. 

“Not everyone’d be so lucky,” Tim fired back with an easy smile. Then, if only to assure no greater joy for Duffy if he waited any longer, Tim shook his hand. 

It was warm, like the room. 

“I heard about what happened,” Duffy said--airily, as if Tim had asked over mutual friends, a break-up, or some other unremarkable occurrence. He released Tim’s hand and gave in lieu of it, a sympathetic frown. 

“Who hasn’t?” Tim drawled, effectively hiding the bitterness from his voice. “I’m gonna have to find a smaller venue for my one-man show.” 

When Duffy didn’t take Tim’s joke and run with it, Tim brought the matter back to brass tacks. “You know what happened, then you know your boys fucked up.”

“I’m not arguing otherwise.” Duffy said, then gave a put-upon sigh. “It is unfortunate. I had an associate once with a penchant for that kind of behavior, and I didn’t like it.” 

He moved in close and loomed over Tim and spoke in an icy-cool tone that made Tim want to punch the man in the mouth and watch him eat his own teeth. “I can understand the impulse, of course.”

Tim remembered Robert Quarles and Donovan, the young kid he had trussed up in his bathroom. Tim hadn’t been the one to interview and debrief the kid--the particular honor went to Rachel--but he’d made himself privy to all the gruesome details. 

Still under Duffy’s shadow, Tim merely reclined his head and squinted tiredly--the picture of ease. “When I don’t like things, I too often stand by and watch them happen. And then redecorate.” 

As for what he would do next, Tim could picture it: sidestep out from under Duffy, keep his cool, play the moment off as an annoyance, not an affront. 

But something inside him snapped and his cool demeanor was overtaken with the kind of simmering anger that made his knuckles whiten and his lip curl. “You’re a fuckin’ cliché,” he spat, and struck out a hand into Duffy’s chest, pushing him away. Duffy didn’t stumble; he caught himself and sacrificed the few feet of space, knowing from experience that far worse could incur if he challenged a Deputy from the Lexington office. 

Tim took measures to see that _worse_ didn’t happen, however. He put distance between himself and Duffy on his end, too, circling around the small venue and pocketing his fists. Still, he kept his cold eyes and barely discernable scowl pinned on Duffy.

Duffy realized his misstep and mimed his surrender. “All right, sourpuss. I’ll make the call.” 

“Do it now,” Tim ordered, eyes flashing. “On speakerphone.”

Duffy frowned, then smiled. Very easily, he found he liked what he saw in Tim. “You’re thorough. Raylan often leaves these things to chance. Or, when he doesn’t--gunpoint.”

“If you need the extra motivation, it wouldn’t be the first time,” Tim drawled. “Today.”

\- 

Outside, Mike looked petulant. Raylan hazarded a guess that the reason for his aggravation had more to do with what was going on in the RV, and little with the fact that he’d left his coat in the driver’s seat. Every few minutes he frowned at Raylan, incredulous. Finally, he spoke: “You’re okay with this?”

 _This_ , as Raylan understood it, was taking a backseat to his own show. A necessary evil because Duffy had to be willed into this act, not dragged. It wasn’t that Raylan was probably more experienced at both methods than Tim--and better, because his charm came as easy as it fled--but he had been excused and sent away. 

So Raylan stood, sometimes staring at the RV, sometimes looking down the line of the empty parking lot, trying to see what Tim had pointed to on the drive there, mumbled _Fargo_ , and then fell silent. If Raylan imagined a haze of snow and an obliterated horizon, he supposed he could see the scene where Jerry Lundegaard trudged through a parking lot punctuated by patterns light poles and plant boxes, a snag in some earth-encasing white-and-black checkered sweater. 

Finally addressing Mike’s question, Raylan squinted into the sunlight and looked every inch the cowboy, even without his hat. “Son, humility is a good lesson to learn early in life. Take it from someone who didn’t. So Duffy is hot shit today. He’ll be shit on someone’s shoe tomorrow.”

Mike cocked his head, bewildered. “What the fuck are you talking about?” 

He raked a hand over his Eurotrash hairstyle, probably the most Raylan had seen the stone giant move in all their passings. “You’re asking Duffy for a favor. That doesn’t come cheap, and _you’re_ the one he’d deal with if what he wanted was business or protection.” 

“What the fuck are _you_ talking about?” Raylan accused. “Tim’s not--” _sucking off your boss._

Mike folded his arms and continued his staring contest with the side of the RV. “You don’t know Wynn.” 

Raylan closed his eyes and tucked his chin down, as if he was so unfazed he might nap. “I know Deputy Gutterson.”

They waited only a few more minutes before the RV door opened and Tim meandered out. In passing the bodyguard, Tim again clapped him on the shoulder. “Go get ‘em, tiger!”

Mike didn’t spare Tim so much as a curious glance before he leapt up the steps into the RV. 

“Intimidating others is a hoot,” Tim said, taking long steps to meet Raylan. He rounded the car, smiling. “I can see why you do it.” 

“It fills my days,” Raylan returned while settling a wary eye on Tim. “Things go well, then?”

“He made the call,” Tim shrugged. “Sounded good.”

“And?” Raylan prompted, confused by Tim’s assurance. They sat in Raylan’s town car and closed the doors to the cold.

“...And I stole his phone,” Tim answered, pulling a sleek iPhone from his coat pocket. “Which isn’t to say he couldn’t call it all off, but if he doesn’t want to get this outta evidence, he’s gonna have to play ball.” 

“Tim,” Raylan chastised, looking ahead at the RV. “I don’t do,” he gestured with a rather stern karate-chop over the dashboard, “ _this_ for kicks. It’s one thing to strong arm a mafia windbag, play the game. It’s another to ensure yourself a follow-up visit.”

Tim shrugged and checked Duffy’s high score on _Candy Crush._ “So he gets the message twice: don’t fuck with me.” 

“You’re just asking for it, Tim.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed with a bark of laughter. “Right between the eyes, I hit him with that patented Gutterson _come hither_ stare.” 

Raylan frowned and started the car. They drove for a time in silence, as Raylan didn’t have a retort and neither was going to issue an apology. 

“Back to the office?” Raylan asked when they stopped at a light. “Or have you got any other secret meetings planned?” The sternness of his voice and the question itself gave Raylan pause. “Christ Almighty, this feels like an out of body experience.”

Tim smirked and continued to fumble with Duffy’s cell phone. Mike the bodyguard had sent a text obviously meant for Tim. _UR AN ASSHOLE._

Tim texted back, _lol._

“We should get Rachel a coffee,” Tim decided, turning off the phone and pocketing it. “Hell, coffees for everyone we want in on this bust.”

“Art?” Raylan asked, understanding Art not shooting down their seeing Duffy as his complicity in their plans. 

Not quite of the same confidence, Tim demurred, “I don’t think we can ask him to lend his credibility to this.”

“I think he’d do it, as a favor.”

“Fuckin’ favors, man,” Tim laughed, thinking, _I can’t stomach any more._ “Boyd’s grainy-as-shit photos were a favor to you, by the way.”

“He likes to throw that word around,” Raylan said. “It doesn’t mean much.” After driving for a time, Raylan was prompted to ask, “Coffee ain’t a favor?”

“It’s a bribe.”

Raylan grinned. “Well how about a car, Tim?”

“Not a bribe,” Tim said after a beat, staring straight ahead and squinting his eyes against the afternoon sun. “And not a favor.” Whatever it was, Tim had to smother a smile at its memory. For whatever messy end Tim had made of their relationship, Jeff had been excited making a deal for a new vehicle. “How do you even know about that?”

Raylan very nearly laughed. “Because I’m good at my job,” he said.

Tim shook his head and surmised, “Jeff called and asked that you keep an eye on me.”

“No.” Raylan lied unconvincingly. “He just didn’t want you going around buying cars for everybody.” Thinking fast, Raylan added, “He did endorse you buying me a new set of tires, though. He was real specific about that.”

“Get it in writing,” Tim said, waving a dismissive hand. 

As decided, they stopped for coffee, and again for donuts. It wouldn’t be until later that evening that the U.S. Marshals would set up to encounter Duffy’s Dixie Mafia throwaways. 

“Not a bribe and not a favor,” Raylan mused as they pulled into his parking spot at the courthouse. “What was it?”

“Due payment,” Tim supposed, stepping out of the car. The cold seemed to have passed and the sun warmed his face. “For services rendered.” 

-

Tim wore his cap backwards in a way that made Raylan think of Kevin Bacon and the 1980s. 

They were just two among a slew of U.S. Marshals positioned in the woods surrounding the abandoned Clemens’ place. It was approaching one in the morning, but everyone was wired and ready to make the assured arrests. Raylan heard a twig snap and knew it was only Dunlop, thanks to his issuing of a hushed _sorry_. 

“More likely coffee breath’ll give us away,” Rachel mumbled, stifling a yawn. 

They were situated closest to the house, each with their back against a tree for cover. Raylan and Rachel were standing, their guns in hand, ears and eyes alert. Tim, meanwhile, sat on the ground, facing the house with his eyes half-closed. He’d learned how not willing to expel energy _waiting_.

Raylan watched as Tim withdrew into himself, preparing for battle. He was quiet and focused on the scene before them, taking in every little detail, amassing it into a kind of situational look-book; countless combinations of series of events rolled back behind his eyes. Tim would have known what to do if Ronald McDonald had stumbled onto the scene. 

It was a cold night, but too dry for snow. The only moisture in the air, it seemed, came in the form of tufted clouds of breath. 

Just after one in the morning, a short string of cars started up the hill towards the Clemens place. The walkie at Rachel’s hip crackled to life and she noted the development. Tim stood, stepped partway behind his tree for cover, and readied his rifle. 

“We take them in,” Art said as a reminder. He had moved out of one of their hidden cars in a clearing in the woods and joined the main team in front of the house. The plan was to allow the men to gather and then flood the property with light from their positioned vehicles. Art carried a megaphone and was ready to call the shots. 

The Marshals kept quiet as the scene opened with car doors and voices. 

Tim had counted nine men before Art gave the order. The place exploded with noise and light and the siren-song of the Marshal vehicles. Art shouted orders along with insults, and the men dropped. There were perhaps a dozen Marshals and support team stationed in the area, but the show they put on could have been the work of a hundred officers streaming out of the woods. Tim, Raylan, Rachel, and others leapt into action, weapons drawn but handcuffs within reach. The first back Rachel dug her knee into as she cuffed a pair of hands belonged to none other than Joshua Steven Meritt. 

In all the excitement, Tim spotted a tenth man. 

He was positioned between two others, slack and unknown in a black body bag.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When we sleep, we should just sleep. When we shit, we should just shit." - Lance Blomgren, _Walkups._

“ _Fucking Wynn Duffy._ ” It was difficult to spit with chattering teeth, but Raylan somehow managed. He and Tim were watching the parade of arrests pass by while discussing their little added gift. They couldn’t avoid the matter; they needed to decide quickly how they would handle whatever came of the body. “Making us look like assholes when this goes fucking nowhere.”

If Tim had ever harbored such concerns, he’d shaken them very quickly. He felt triumphant, if a little wired. He’d partaken in his bribery attempt, too--two cups at the very least, although instinctively, Tim knew his nerves were born of some harsher stuff than dark roast. 

Unlike Raylan, Tim was not quickly given to fatalism. “If that body is Duffy’s handiwork, we pin it on him.” 

Raylan encased his chattering teeth in a frown. “You’re going to have to explain your line of thinking to me, Tim, because I _know_ you’re not as stupid as you sound right now.” 

Pushing off from the car hood they were both leaning against--in part for warmth from the running car, but also because of the view it gave them of the slow proceedings--Tim released his hands from his pockets and gave a full-body shrug. “These arrests are good,” he said to combat Raylan’s doubts. “At the very least, I can ID six of ‘em right now.”

Opposite of the crowding vehicles and activity, there was only stillness and quiet. Long, thin-trunked trees broke with the earth and seemed to expand like a breath. Naked branches opened like thousands of slender arms and hugged the black sky. Tim liked camping, but he couldn’t name the species of tree. Likewise, he often confused poison ivy with poison oak, but knew to avoid both. 

For a moment he wanted only to wander, but he managed just a few aimless steps. Some feet more and he could have made the treeline, but Tim held back. He gave up the space he’d taken and distance he’d covered, returning to Raylan’s side and knowing better than to make big pronouncements that could get them noticed. 

When Tim did speak, it was everything he had to say, but nothing he’d been thinking about. “We get some of these guys to talk, place a few at the Clemens’ place, at few at Crowder’s bar, and we ain’t doing half bad. So that body is Duffy’s little _fuck you_ , and he gets pissed at me for bringing his name in, so what? What’s the worst he can do?” Before Raylan could start in, Tim gave a cheeky reminder: “I don’t have an ex-wife’s ex-husband he can lay out on my lawn.” 

Raylan dragged his hand down his face, exasperated. The knuckles on his right were still cut and bruised from the night before. “There’s a reason I keep threatening to kill him, Tim. He ain’t a nice guy.” 

“Maybe I’ll finish the job,” Tim drawled. He’d barely touched his backside to the hood before again deciding to meander. He splayed his arms out again before Raylan--a shrug, but not unlike a taunt. “Keep you from having to repeat yourself like a fuckin’ broken record.” 

_“Hey.”_

If Tim had been standing beside him and not beginning to walk away, Raylan supposed he wouldn’t have grabbed him. But Tim’s dismissive attitude was already wearing on his nerves, and before Raylan could even consider an alternative, his arm was out and his hand like a vice at Tim’s elbow. There was not even a beat, a _second_ before Tim jerked violently out of the hold as though Raylan’s muscles, bones, and tendons were weak as tissue paper. If Raylan had kept his grasp on the material of Tim’s jacket, it might have very well torn in the altercation. 

Each Marshal regarded the other with a look of contempt. They both held, waiting, wondering how badly the other wanted a fight.

Raylan figured they’d both sustained enough beatings for a time, so he raised his palms in surrender. He also rolled his eyes, because he wasn’t about to be broken of his confrontational nature in one late-night stakeout. 

Tim sucked in a cold breath of air through his nose, then released it as a tired sigh. Raylan didn’t have to _try_ to get a rise out of him, but Tim could usually conjure up the fortitude it took to say something low, raw, and just mean enough to get Raylan off his case. 

In this instance, he searched but found no quick line to deter Raylan’s attention. The matter needed settling, so Tim collected his thoughts and began coolly, “ _You’ve said_ that Duffy is too good to have the shit he’s done linked back to him.” He paused, giving Raylan a moment to recognize his own assurances hurled back at him. “So one of two things happens: One, we _can’t_ link shit to him and look like incompetent assholes trying to pawn off that body to county or locals, who will carry on our prestigious asshole lineage.” Tim again looked to Raylan to judge how well the assessment was received. Raylan gave a compliant nod.

“ _Or two,_ there’s enough to bring Duffy in and he makes my life miserable.” Tim wet his lips, suddenly not hearing his own words for the uneasy feeling stirring wet and hot in his belly, ghosting up his chest and burying itself in his ears. Tim only heard his own heartbeat, and it was deafening. “Or he can try to satellite that mess in from fuckin’ Kentucky to Colorado, because I don’t give a shit anymore. I don’t.” 

Under Raylan’s steady stare, Tim finished lowly: “The worst he can say about me is just the truth, anyway.” 

Uncertain as to whether he was dealing with self-hating bullshit or foolish bravado, Raylan kept his response simple and direct in a way he thought his fellow Marshal would appreciate. “He’ll make something up, Tim. You think he hasn’t done it before?”

But Tim only saw Raylan’s shtik: the tarantula hands resting on his hips (themselves twisted and weighted as though to accommodate a heavy pistol resting on each), the half-lidded eyes, the stale grimace. If Raylan was in possession of his hat, it would be one of the instances in which Tim found himself barely containing the urge to reach out and knock the thing off its perch--that is, if there was any give to the swollen head it adorned. 

Tim tasted his split lip again, then smiled. “What’d he say about you, anyway? Something about some known criminal associates? _What a fuckin’ stretch._ ” 

\- 

Gathering and leaving with every suspect from the Clemens’ place was like organizing a field trip for a slew of unruly, criminal enterprising second graders. 

Then, there was the task of sneaking them into the Marshal’s offices--literally under the cover of darkness. It wouldn’t be the first time some nosy defense lawyer was loitering by the elevators, trying to make eyes with a suspect at the first sign of life afterhours. 

Art took control, ordering the pulling of files and a follow-up on the body. 

They worked overnight and into the next morning, throwing back coffee when the smell of a fresh pot reawakened the senses. The entire affair became smaller as Marshals and others took off for their holidays, or to sleep. Once names were assembled and files were requested and pulled, it was just a matter of tearing holes in cover stories, making deals, and keeping the matter out of the hands of the local PD, considering that the only fugitive in the matter had been dead for three months. 

Without discussion or ceremony, Rachel, Raylan, and Tim moved the operation entirely into Art’s office. This was done as the suspects filled the conference room and were sat in front of the odd desk, bemoaning to anyone within earshot that they were missing the Christmas holidays with their supposed wife and 2.5 children. Tim thought the pilgrimage was made to excuse him from some of the familiar faces, but he appreciated the privacy of Art’s office too much to make an issue of its honest appropriation. 

When Tim sought out a refill of coffee around 4am, he was noticed by Meritt, who was all the angrier with him now for planning and executing the bust. Meritt was sat by Frank Yowell, a big, barrel chested individual who had been one of the two carrying the body bag across the Clemens’ lawn. Meritt nudged Frank with his elbow--both were cuffed--and directed his attention to Tim. 

“Charlie’s last fuck,” Meritt observed, all too loudly for just Frank’s benefit. Processing one of the files a few desks over, Nelson raised his head, curious. 

“Yeah, I was.” Tim smiled in a way he knew wasn’t at all friendly. “Funny, he hasn’t called me back.” 

Looking on disinterestedly over his most recent arrests, Tim took a sip of his coffee--black and strong, but sat out so long that it wasn’t hot enough to irritate his lip--and nodded amiably. “Either of you shitting cock-ups wanna try your luck, you give a holler. I’ll be in the next room over, deciding how best to ruin your lives. Don’t be a stranger.” 

Returning to the office, Tim sat so that his back was to the glass door and any eyes that might be watching him through it. He picked up a file and started reading furiously, practically glaring through the texts. He did this for hours until, late in the morning, Tim closed his eyes. 

Raylan looked half-asleep as he re-entered the office and approached Tim’s corner of Art’s desk, coroner’s report in hand. 

“Surprising news,” he said, stifling a yawn. “In that, it’s good. Our body wasn’t murdered. And he’s less a body than a corpse with some bits of hair still stuck to him. He died in 2003 of old age.”

Tim stirred from his half-sleep stasis, hungry for details. “Mm. The dead don’t got names?”

“Can’t imagine why they’d need ‘em,” Raylan mused, but answered all the same, “Michael Clemens.”

Tim’s brow furrowed as he took this in. “The father.”

Certain that if he took a seat, he’d end up sleeping there, Raylan continued to hover over the desk. “Looks like a family feud, huh? Clemens, Clemens’ cousin, and now Duffy provides them with Clemens the elder, dug up on outta a cemetery in Owen county. It’s likely they never even knew who it was.”

“Sending them back to the Clemens’ place--where they wouldn’t have been, had they not known you’d be there--and bringing the father of one of their victims with ‘em.” Just saying the words aloud, Tim knew the case was simple enough for even the most esteemed of Kentucky juries. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the slow roar of a headache grow at the backs of his eyes. “ _Fuck._ Duffy did us a favor.” 

Raylan nodded in agreement. “And that’s the bad news.”

Tim scrubbed the side of his face. “You didn’t say shit about bad news.”

“Funny, I always thought it went without saying.” Raylan set the faxed coroner's report on the only empty space left on Art’s desk. He stifled a yawn and resisted the urge to collapse in the chair beside Tim, or on the couch, and just sleep for a few hours. He could do that in just twenty minutes yet, with Lindsey eagerly hugged to his side. “I’m going home,” he said. suddenly it became a question, as though he thought Tim would refuse him. “Rachel, too. She’s got family stuff, but I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.” 

Tim scooped up the report and glanced over it. Raylan figured he was only pretending to be busy, but his eyes were bright with unmistakable focus. Raylan supposed this was a taste of whatever it was inside of Tim that allowed him to keep his mind on a target for days on end. “I heard Vasquez might be by here. I’ma wait for that.” 

It was a _goodbye_ as well as a _get out._

“You gonna sit him down for storytime?” Raylan asked, trying his best to shame his fellow Marshal out of the office. “He can read what we’ve got, Tim.” 

“Yeah, but I can do the voices.” 

Tim was light and friendly in his opposition, and Raylan knew therein was his defeat. “Art’s gonna tell you the same thing,” he tried--a last-ditch effort. 

“Art’ll be more colorful in his wording.” 

Tim wasn’t leaving. Raylan waved a hand and made his own exit. 

After reading the entirety of the coroner’s report, Tim stared at the little trinkets and things on Art’s desk. Earlier, he’d moved a framed family photo onto a cabinet across the room to keep it safe from the tiered stacks of files and multiplying coffee cups. Anything small enough just got covered with paper. Tim was half-certain there was a house plant under a foot-high stack of criminal records. 

Tim sat and stared until there was nothing in his head but felonies and release dates and cell numbers. Until Art sat down in his chair directly across from Tim, the Marshal hadn’t even been away of his entrance. It was 11am, and Tim supposed the office had to be turned over to regular business. The thought didn’t alarm him; he knew the men in the conference room would be dealt with soon. 

“I’ll get out of your way,” Tim mumbled, rising from his seat and taking the first of many stacks of files into his arms. 

“Stay,” Art insisted. “You’ve already laid claim to my desk.” 

“Well with an invitation like that,” Tim drawled sarcastically, then continued to gather his notes and papers. 

“Stay,” Art said again--not more forcibly, but quieter, more seriously. It wasn’t a tone Tim often heard from the Chief, who tended to operate in a range from sarcastic to ballistic. Art cleared a space to rest his hands and access his keyboard. “We need to talk,” Art said, then amended with an index finger pointed squarely at Tim’s chest: “ _You_ need to listen.” 

Tim worked his aching jaw until he felt like it had set properly. He hated the way these recent talks with Art always ended; Art came marching in like an overbearing father, and Tim sulked out like a disgruntled teenager. It wasn’t a good look for either man, and it hadn’t always been that way. 

Art laced his hands and stared at them. Tim stared at them, too. He wondered if Art was _praying._

“Chief--” Tim started to object, to refuse the whole conversation before it could even begin. There were hundreds of reasons why _now_ was not the time to engage in yet another failed heart-to-heart. Tim could name nine of them off the top of his head--and they were sitting just outside Art’s office.

Art cocked his head a hair, sported a grimace that had him looking like he’d mistaken a lemon for an orange, and silently implored Tim to let him make of this brief moment of privacy and calm what he could. 

When Art spoke, he delivered each word as though he was reading it from his Bible, and by that virtue alone figured it would mean something to Tim. “I am sorry for what happened to you. I don’t think I have expressly told you so.” 

“No,” Tim agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “But I didn’t get the feeling you were thrilled about it, neither.” 

Art didn’t allow his frustration to bleed through his calm facade. it had taken him a while, but he’d finally accepted the crass jokes as just what Tim had decided to do instead of crying, raging, or shutting down completely. “You’re one of mine, Tim. My employee, my hire, my Deputy.” 

“Your sun and your moon,” Tim interjected flatly. 

“A pain in my ass,” Art corrected. 

And Tim supposed they had made progress, because for the first time in months, Art didn’t look as though he’d drunk an extra chunky shit-shake at Dairy Queen after saying something like that. 

Undeterred, Art continued, “I’m proud of what I’m seeing here today. And, admittedly, a little surprised.”

It hadn’t struck Tim until that moment that his basic operating assumption over the past several months was that a roving gang was on his and Raylan’s heels. It sounded _fucking stupid_ and Tim marveled that Art hadn’t fought harder against his outbursts about the beatings and roadside incident outside the Harlan VWF Club. The realization must have been plain on Tim’s face, because Art laughed. 

“Right?” he grinned. 

“Yeah, _I was_ ,” Tim snarked back. But he was grinning, too.

Because Tim had been the new guy before Raylan entered nutsack-first into the Lexington office, he’d been designated the shitty late-night shifts, mostly to field calls and ensure paperwork came in from the coast, if needed. He spent much more time than he’d anticipated with the Chief, who made it a habit to stay late or arrive at odd hours, snatch up a folder and work toward an answer. They mostly worked in silence, which Tim liked. Sometimes Art would be on a call with the Feebs, and would throw an eraser or something at his glass wall, get Tim’s attention, and proceed to make faces throughout the duration of the call. Tim would watch, pen stuck in his grinning mouth as his superior gloriously made an ass of himself.

 _Dumb shit,_ Tim remembered now, although at the time it had been a verifiable Godsend. Tim might have done some praying for it, himself. 

In Afghanistan, Tim had been a stupid fucking kid in the company of other stupid fucking kids. They were far too young to be doing what they were--although Tim had his doubts about anyone being _old enough_ for war, as if age was a qualifier--and all too often were left to jockey their jobs with their capacity to do them, even in the short-term. For any considerable length of time, Tim couldn’t remember having a commanding officer any more than five years his senior. Men in his unit often joked that they’d been dumped in the mountains or on the outskirts of villages and simply forgotten about until the line of authority took a couple of wrong turns and eventually found them.

Art, on the other hand, was not the return to drill sergeants Tim had expected. Nor was he a proponent of the trial-by-fire Tim’s first tour had turned out to be. Art was a bit of a showman, a self-styled mentor, a friend, took no bullshit, and genuinely endeavored to make his work worthwhile, known, and _appreciated._ The same went for those working under his command. Art had an extraordinary knowledge of his team--their personalities, strengths, weaknesses. Their whereabouts, too, although Raylan often tested that skill.

And Tim wondered if some of the hostility towards his coming out stemmed from the intuitiveness on which Art prided himself. The Chief didn’t want to believe there was something about one of his Deputies he might be oblivious to. It was a pleasant notion, but it nonetheless made Tim uncomfortable; it simply wasn’t Art’s whole truth. Tim didn’t like to think of his evening in the hospital and had even told Raylan he couldn’t remember it very well. 

He _did_ remember Art shouting at him to get tested immediately, and at Tim’s steadfast refusal (and quiet admission-- _“It ain’t my first rodeo”_ ), the Chief just snapped. _“Just get the goddamn tests, Tim. You’ve probably done this a thousand times.”_

“Just twice a year, actually,” Tim had said, then shut down.

While the implications of Art’s words didn’t hit him in the hospital, Art was feeling them now. 

“None of this is on you,” Tim said as his moment of realization dawned and settled. “And your guilt doesn’t make me feel better. Raylan’s does, of course. I could eat that shit up morning, noon, and night.” 

His attempt at letting the air out of Art’s moment didn’t take. Art continued to frown and look upon Tim tiredly. “Raylan told me about Colorado,” he said. “If that’s what you want, I have a contact there. I can make the call right now, if you’d like.” 

Tim stared, mouth slightly open until his tongue felt dry and he shut it. “Well goddamn, Art, do you have a bag packed for me, too?” Tim swallowed, desperate for something to lubricate his objection, but it was like trying to squeeze water from stone. “Just--let me finish this.” Tim threw an arm back, indicating the cuffed and sour-looking men squeezed into the conference room, and said sardonically, “I think I’m close!”

“I know you are,” Art said, not allowing the humor to cover what was truly a triumph for Tim. “But what about after?”

“Can we maybe talk about this,” Tim waited a beat, then punctuated: _“after?”_

Art sighed. “You walk in here every day looking like someone’s shot your dog.”

“I didn’t realize I was responsible for keeping morale high around here,” Tim returned coolly. “Can I get reimbursed for pom-poms and a couple’a confetti cannons?” 

“Tim.”

“You’re right. How stupid of me. T-shirt cannons would be way cooler.”

“If you’re miserable here, son, you don’t have to be for one more second than is necessary,” Art laced his hands, prayer-style again. “Whatever you want, Tim.” 

Although there was nothing kind or gentle on the tip of his tongue, Tim managed to reign in his temper and speak as though he had no burning desire to shoot down every word of Art’s placating message. “I want to see this through.”

His single-mindedness was staggering. Art thought back to Raylan’s experience in Nicaragua which, per Raylan’s design, was not widely known. Maybe it took experiencing something awful to regulate and order every thought in a man’s thick skull toward one final goal. 

For Tim and Raylan both, it was justice--of a kind.

But Art was sat before Tim, now, and not tailing Raylan on some Miami pier. “Tim,” he implored, “You’re not gonna try this case yourself. Your part is done. It _is_ the after.”

Tim scratched his neck and looked away. He caught sight of Vasquez entering through the double doors ahead of the bullpen. Tim straightened in his seat.

Art sighed but dropped his case, thinking that unless Vasquez had any pressing questions (and by that measure, was a fucking idiot), he’d be confident with the Marshals’ findings and dismiss Tim’s continued presence, too. Upon entering Art’s office and seeing the two Marshals, Vasquez did have _one_ question: “What the hell happened?”

“A lot of arrests,” Tim answered coolly. “Please don’t fuck ‘em up.”

“No--what the hell happened to your _face._ ”

“What the hell happened to yours?” Tim drawled in returned, before realizing Vasquez was referring to the beating Tim had sustained just over a day ago. Tim hadn’t seen himself in a mirror lately, but from experience he rightly guessed he was pretty horribly discolored. He shook his head at himself and stood to gather the files Vasquez would need. 

While he worked, Vasquez warned that the accessory to murder charge the Marshals were hanging their hats on was weak if only one of the conspirators was able to make it. Tim reminded him that four people had been killed at the Clemens’ place that day in October, and considering where they each went down, it could be that the job necessitated four shooters. With names and prints, they’d found that two were wanted in a cold case out in North Carolina. After Tim mentioned this and spoke at length to provide intel on the other suspects, Vasquez took a moment of honest consideration before assuring both Marshals that the law will allow him to cobble something together. 

Tim nodded agreeably. “Okay, let’s get started.” 

“Forgive me,” Vasquez said coolly, “I must have been unclear. That was a polite way of saying I can handle this from here, Deputy.” 

“You should go on home now, Tim,” Art instructed. 

“Put some ice on,” Vasquez raised a hand and, from a distance, palmed at Tim’s entire face. _“All that.”_

Tim was about to voice his opposition when Art snapped, “ _Now,_ goddamnit.”

The angry expression on Tim’s face smoothed away, but the edges were rough and for a moment, he was left looking completely lost. 

“Yeah,” he said, mild as milk. “No problem.”

He turned and exited the office with a stack of photocopied files under one arm, plucked his jacket off the back of his chair, and left without another combative word of protest. 

At his apartment, Tim left the files in an ominous stack by the door, uncertain that he’d ever even planned to touch them again. He’d only wanted a final go at Art-- _I’m leaving, but I’m not letting you send me home to bed._

Using Jeff’s recipe of water and alcohol (Tim had some Vodka he never saw reason to drink, so in it went), Tim made an ice pack for his face like he should have done two days ago. Standing in front of the fridge and waiting for the mixture to freeze left Tim feeling more alone than he had in a long time.

Tim massaged the pack gently against his swollen cheek and jaw until the freezing, stinging feeling subsided into a kind of general, sense-diminishing numbness that matched the ache in his gut. It could have been hunger that suddenly consumed him, but Tim couldn’t bring himself to will his aching body back into the kitchen, much less prepare himself dinner. 

A beer and some string cheese sounded so unappealing to Tim he thought he might gag at the mere thought of it; he wanted a nice, hot meal or nothing at all. 

He thought absently about rising early and eating a full breakfast at a diner, or taking a long lunch, or making plans after work... The more he thought about it, the less he cared. Already, Tim was giving up on the idea, postponing the notion until it held as little merit as locking away the conspirators had. A substantive meal, a defining arrest--both were material, both were supposed to _mean something._

Tim shuffled into his living room. 

He dozed on the couch for only a few hours, awaking by mid-afternoon. 

Already sat in front of his television, Tim flipped through cartoons and infomercials until happening upon a rerun of a program he’d watched as a kid. Bruce Campbell’s jawline was the real star, but Tim also had a vague recollection of a horse sidekick, a golden orb from space, and Julius Carry as the rival-turned-partner bounty hunter. Watching it later in life, Tim was glad to have confirmation: there’d been no cowboy love affair in his youth. Bruce Campbell was still the genuine, hokey hero, and the show was what it had always been: a clever and wholesome program about friendship, adventure, and good versus evil. 

Tim worked the stiffness out of his jaw and did a little more channel surfing, feeling the slow slowing of a sleepless night. He settled on _Raging Bull._

-

 _Raging Bull_ devolved into _Grey Gardens_ and _Children of the Damned_ on Turner Classic Movies. 

_Grey Gardens_ did a lot to ease Tim’s feelings of being out of his mind, but at some point during _Damned_ , when the antics of psychic children--crushing police skulls, the usual--became tedious, Tim did a load of laundry in his building’s downstairs facilities, cleared the turned food from his refrigerator, cleaned and tidied his apartment, as well as collected and emptied his garbage. He couldn’t think of another adult thing to do, because he’d paid his monthly water and electric bills two weeks ago. 

Something in Tim twisted his lip and filled his nostrils, some sense memory of cigarettes. In his sleepless state, his wires had crossed; there was no confusing his father’s cigarettes for a clean living and utility bills. Tim laughed at himself and turned over on the couch, stretched out and invited sleep. 

Just as Tim was nodding off around 7am, he received a text message from Art, telling him he’d done good work and should take the rest of the week. Tim figured he might as well take the day to catch up on sleep and think seriously about his future prospects--if any--in Kentucky or elsewhere. 

He fixed himself a bowl of cereal, but couldn’t finish it. After showering and changing his bedsheets--he’d forgotten about them before doing the laundry and they were stained with reddish-brown blood stains, still--Tim crawled into bed and slept for the entire day, until he was awoken in the early evening. 

Tim untangled himself from the sheets and ventured to answer the persistent knocking at his apartment door while still half-asleep, wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, and feeling a bit ill. He crossed through the bathroom on his way and viewed through sleep-heavy eyes that, beneath the discolored yellow and purple bruising, his face was pink and warm and awash with color. He didn’t get sick often, but when he did, Tim managed to look like death itself in drag. 

His visitor hung in the doorway like a bad smell. 

“This a bad time?”

Tim hardly opened his eyes any wider from what could _generously_ be called a squint. “Yeah I was just heading out to meet the mayor.” 

He was about to step back and allow Raylan entrance when one detail of the man’s presentation caught his eye. Tim grinned and shook his head. 

“Your hat,” he observed, brows reaching. “Finally, this whole fuckin’ nightmare is over.” After a three month absence, its return was shocking simplistic. Tim had expected helicopters, SEAL Team 6, and maybe a Purple Heart pinned to the hat’s upturned lip that Raylan would later complain about, because of the tiny pinhole. 

Raylan took it off and turned it over in his hands, fondly. “One of the locals raiding the motel our guys were frequenting found it perched atop a wall lamp.”

 _A trophy,_ Tim thought, but didn’t say anything to interrupt the bizarrely tender moment Raylan was having with his hat. “There’s a little heat damage, mostly just the inside band along the brim...”

That did it for Tim, who grinned at the floor but lifted his head to showcase a put-upon frown. “Sounds like a hanging offense,” he drawled. “I hope those fellas swing for what they did to the 99-cent piece of felt in your hat.”

“The band was _silk,_ ” Raylan argued, clearly not appreciative of Tim’s joking. “And--oh. Locals found this, too.”

From his jeans pocket, Raylan produced Tim’s watch, which Tim hadn’t given a second thought to after losing. He figured he’d lost it around the Clemens’ place, or in the scuffle that led to his hands being bound. In fact, Tim was certain the latter was the case; otherwise, his left wrist wouldn’t have mirrored the right in scars and welts.

The watch was nothing special--it had survived multiple tours in Afghanistan, but Tim felt he could take credit for that. It had a green band and a dark face and didn’t light up. Tim must have spent accumulative hours, days, _weeks_ of his life glancing at that little clock face, though, lying in wait for the order to shoot. 

“Well look at that,” he said, trying for cool but knowing some trip in his voice betrayed him. He didn’t like the sudden feeling of sympathizing with Raylan and his hat, knowing something had expressly been taken from him, kept and secreted away. Tim smoothed a thumb over the watch face, noting that it was still in working order. 

He dropped it into a kitchen drawer and closed it, if only because throwing the thing away might strike Raylan as ungrateful. Raylan probably had to argue the thing out of evidence, and while Tim didn’t much care, he had enough foresight to dodge another line of questioning.

Finding he was cold, Tim snatched up a freshly laundered hoodie from the pile of clean clothes he hadn’t yet put away. It was old and perpetually-stained, and Tim only ever wore it while running in the early morning. The frayed hem didn’t even cover his boxers.

“Don’t get all gussied up on my account,” Raylan said. While he hadn’t donned his hat to signal his leaving, he looked anxious to depart. 

Tim flipped Raylan the bird and fixed himself a glass of water, his head still soft with sleep, despite the jarring revelation of his watch. “What’s up?”

Raylan couldn’t tell Tim he’d promised his ex he’d keep an eye on him, but as a strategy, lying to Tim hadn’t exactly served Raylan well, either. Raylan shrugged and said, “The thing about living above a bar is, you start to feel like an alcoholic just using the tap water to brush your teeth.”

Again, Tim squinted at Raylan, trying to parse out the hidden agenda, the narrowest angle from which Raylan was shooting off such a wayward excuse. “So d’you want a change of scenery for drinking, or d’you want to brush your teeth?”

“You were asleep,” Raylan said, smiling weakly. “Forget I stopped by.”

“You kiddin’? This is going straight into my diary.” 

Finished with his water, Tim moved to put the glass in the sink. He had some bruising on his legs, still. They were lean, somewhat muscular, hairy, and pale as paper, so the purple abrasions on the backs of his thighs were impossible to miss. Although Raylan made no sign or sound upon laying eyes on the colorful spread, Tim, with the slow and sick dawning of realization, knew he’d been exposed. Although the kicks to his fleshier parts hurt less than those to his gut, head, and hands, being laid out flat across the street from the Louisville VA and taking a _literal_ asskicking had most damaged Tim’s pride.

And it didn’t help his parting request, certainly.

“You don’t have to do this anymore,” Tim said. “In fact, I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” 

Raylan shook his head, feigning ignorance. 

“Stopping by here, checking up on me,” Tim’s voice was low and accusatory. “Things are better, all right?” Raylan smirked at that, thinking he was in on some joke with Tim. Tim didn’t smile. “I don’t care if you feel guilty or if these visits are just little clots of sunshine pumped outta the goodness of your heart--it’s not necessary. Really.” 

“Mhm, and tell me again why you weren’t at work today?” Raylan asked--a neat little question enclosing his broader argument to the contrary of Tim’s request. Raylan didn’t think Tim would raise his arms in surrender and open a day calendar to schedule Raylan’s next visit, but he didn’t expect open honesty, either.

“I’m tired,” Tim said. The low rumble of his voice and dark circles under his eyes seemed to back his story. “And I got a touch of the flu, maybe. Hell, just _watching_ Boyd Crowder talk in circles gives me vertigo.” Raylan made a knowing expression, and shrugged as if to say, _can’t argue there._

“I’m tired,” Tim repeated, his blue eyes dull and listless under the cover of his brow. He wet his lips and thought of a million things he and Raylan would likely agree upon: _Tired of being talked about, looked in on, worried over, punched in the face, fucked up and over, doubted, distrusted, belittled._ “Aren’t you?” 

And not for the first time, Raylan wondered if he ought to tell Tim that he didn’t sleep some nights, too. And when he did, he’d occasionally startle into wakefulness, sweaty and sick with the memory of the trunk of the car and seeing Tim like he had. He hadn’t been right since the kidnapping and in those moments--sat up in bed, Lindsey oblivious and soundly sleeping against his side--he wondered if he ever would be, again. Speaking with Tim like a fucking adult was something Raylan often thought about, but never did. The teasing and joking went both ways and Raylan had always thought whiskey to be the best medicine, and a grin its natural (eventual) result. Eventually the hurt would subside. The guilt could be fixed up with little favors until Raylan felt as rid of it as he needed to.

Raylan didn’t say anything of this; he kept as quiet as Tim.

In that moment of shared silence, Tim worried Raylan would again take off his hat and intend to stay, so Tim issued a low blow to sever the legs of whatever idea Raylan had forming in his head. Some ridiculous notion that they ought to talk about things without jokes or deflections, really try their collective hand at seeing the matter to rest--whatever it was, Tim wasn’t game.

Really and truly, he was tired.

“I know you don’t care to hear it,” Tim said, absently filling the glass he’d set in the sink again with tap water, “But thanks. For having my back.” 

The comment fulfilled its purpose and drove Raylan away. He parted with a smile and a tip of his hat--but also a twist of his mouth, as if he’d meant to say more. He still felt guilty, Tim supposed. 

Tim sipped at his second glass of water to settle his stomach and thought idly that maybe he did have the flu. 

\- 

Tim awoke at 6am feeling largely recovered from his earlier unease, only to arrive at work and realize it was the twenty-third, and many of his colleagues had scheduled to take a few days to celebrate the holidays. 

The following day was much of the same. Tim and Raylan were among the few Deputies working the holiday stint. Mostly, their days consisted of clearing backlogged files and fielding the rare phone call. Around 3pm, Raylan dug up some bourbon from Art’s office, and after abducting a young law clerk they found roaming the building, they had their own little Christmas party. Along with Aaron Schwartz, Tim and Raylan ordered a pizza, believing the company and the food made their drinking _social,_ and therefore excusable.

Just after 4pm, Raylan insisted on a drinking game: _why am I here?_

“I’ll start,” Raylan said, finishing off his drink so that his glass would be ceremoniously empty for the beginning of the game. “Shit. I can’t think of a reason this time.”

“You pulled your gun on that guy in the conference room last week,” Tim said, smirking. 

Raylan took the offering and filled the three glasses, though he stipulated: “Only because you told me to. But sure, I’ll go with that.” Raylan, Tim, and Aaron threw back their drinks. Aaron seemed suddenly less thrilled with his company, however; gossip moved fast in the courthouse, but he hadn’t heard about Raylan’s most recent gunplay. 

“Aaron,” Raylan said, slapping the man on the shoulder. Tim wouldn’t have been surprised to learn this was Raylan’s first meeting with the kid, never mind the friendly antics. “You’re a young fella, bright-eyed, full of promise. What the hell are you doin’ here?”

Aaron pointed to his I.D. card--specifically, his last name. “I’m here because I am one of God’s chosen people. Chosen, I guess, to suffer through a more popular holiday.” 

They grinned and drank. 

Tim refilled their glasses promptly and skipped the fanfare, answering eagerly: “I’m here ‘cause I wanna be. Pay and a half? Shit yeah.” 

They played the game for a while, each coming up with more ridiculous reasons to explain their presence. Soon, it was just Raylan playing. Eventually, it was just Raylan, drinking. 

Tim doubted there were problems between Raylan and Lindsey--by Raylan’s own word, theirs was a blissfully simple acquaintance. Tim supposed it had something to do with Winona and the latest falling out between herself and Raylan. She was pregnant, last he’d (over)heard. Whether Raylan would be a presence in the kid’s life was likely undecided--although, Tim didn’t doubt he wanted to be. 

Raylan was in a rolling chair, arm draped around the copy machine, long legs extended and toes tapping out a beat only partially in sync with the Christmas music station he’d tuned to on Pandora. (This, he’d done to Tim’s surprise. Raylan had ushered in a new wave of Netflix subscribers in the office; why anyone was still surprised by his technological prowess was beyond him.) “Anybody wanna give me a handjob under the mistletoe? Anybody? Tim?”

Tim was at his desk and sitting across from Aaron, watching the man’s hands and trying for a respectable copy of the paper crane he had folded out of an outdated list of Kentucky’s ten most wanted fugitives. Untucking a corner and smoothing out the mistake with his thumb, Tim was too intent on his task to entertain Raylan’s advances. “Pass.”

“...Aaron?” 

Tim couldn’t be sure, but Raylan had very nearly forgotten the kid’s name. 

“No thanks,” Aaron said, catching Tim’s eye and laughing. 

“At least you’re polite.” Raylan spun in his chair and flicked the little sprig of mistletoe someone had taped to the paper tray of the copy machine. It was hardly three feet off the ground. “Come’on, Tim. Be a pal.”

“Not tonight, honey, I’ve got a headache,” Tim deadpanned. Then he swore and swept his mangled crane into the garbage bin.

Raylan lifted himself up and marched into Art’s office where he proceeded to fall asleep on the couch. 

Aaron wandered around the office some, curious to see what his fellow lawyers called the slaughterhouse--just another part of some metaphoric criminal pig’s journey to becoming legal sausage. 

Tim allowed it. There was nothing going on that Aaron could disturb, lest he wrestle the dwindling bottle of bourbon out of Raylan’s hands. Even being the only relatively sober Deputy U.S. Marshal in the building, Tim knew he didn’t have as much authority as Raylan did. Telling anyone off the premises would have been a futile effort--much like pulling rank when nobody in the office understood his military background. Here, he was still a junior Deputy Marshal--never mind the starred medal stationed behind his desk. 

The thing still held its wonder for the odd visitor passing through the office, however. Tim wished he’d locked it in a drawer when Judge Mike “The Hammer” Reardon cruised by and spotted it, then pestered Tim for over an hour, seeking his most gruesome war stories. Tim put an end to it when he elbowed out of the Judge’s path, arms laden with files. “Worst shit I’ve seen is what happens to a lowly U.S. Marshal who doesn’t finish his paperwork on time. _Judge._ ” 

Aaron’s interest was more limited in that he didn’t pluck the medal off its stand and hold it up to Tim’s chest like an anxious prom date pinning a boutonniere. He merely hovered and inspected the thing, a little awed.

Tim shrugged off Aaron’s interest. “Any dead man can get a medal,” he said, echoing the running joke among himself and his surviving Ranger buddies. It sounded too morose to a civilian’s ears, Tim reasoned, so he plucked the Army Rangers mug from his desk and held it proudly. “But goddamn, they don’t give these mugs to just anyone.”

Aaron sat back down in the chair opposite Tim’s desk, recognizing that the hour was growing late and returning to his own office was needless. More importantly, something had been nagging at him. “Hey,” Aaron started, “I work for David Vasquez and, um, I think helped with your case a couple months ago.” 

“You think?” Tim asked, glancing away from his computer screen. He was still fielding the odd email, usually a request for a file to be faxed. 

Aaron nodded eagerly. “Timothy Gutterson, right?” Tim made a derisive face at the implementation of his full name, but didn’t negate Aaron’s guess. “You’d only said your first name earlier--I wasn’t sure. But, yeah. I did.”

Tim’s eyes flitted once--twice--between his computer and Aaron’s open face. He tried for bored. “That so?” 

“Yeah,” Aaron scooted his chair closer to Tim’s desk and leaned over the side, every inch the prospective lawyer. “It was really impressive, what you two went through. What you did.”

Tim mulled over his response. Time did him no favors, however--he spoke flatly, sharply. “That it?”

Aaron was rightfully taken aback, but hid his discomfort well. “Really, _really_ impressive?”

Tim stared at him a moment and then half-laughed, half-sighed, and ducked his head. He was the picture of mistaken intentions and a little too much premium bourbon. Aaron relaxed. “Which case was this?”

Aaron chuckled, but was hardly heard over a swell of instrumentals in Raylan’s Christmas music. “You’ve orchestrated more than one escape from a rigged car in the last year?” 

Tim only shrugged a shoulder and gestured for Aaron to continue. His mind wandered into dark territories even as Aaron voiced his explanation. The details were small, easy, yet Tim was still weary of their discussion. “I read the report and transcribed the audio from your interview. David is really hands-on with his work, so that was about where my part finished. I guess since that FBI guy Barkley wasted his time on Deputy Givens, he’s gotten a bit... cagey.” Aaron rolled his eyes and Tim recognized the strained look on his face as one custom-tailored for interns and temps; moreso than access to the case itself, Aaron was concerned with his padding his resume. “Kind of makes it hard to get experience,” he finished with a wary smile. He didn’t want his complaints getting back to Vasquez, so Tim gave him a knowing smile and his swiftest assurances. 

“And hey,” Tim drawled, sweet and friendly to amend for his sour attitude, “I’m sure Raylan will shoot some people. He’s due for another investigation. There’s some experience for ya.” 

“Gosh, do you think?” Aaron grinned, lifting his head to see just the crown of Raylan’s hat through Art’s office. “My hero.”

Raylan made a groaning sound--loud and wheezy, at first, until he turned and muffled the noise into the couch cushions. 

“Never meet your heroes,” Tim advised dryly. Secretly, he was feeling strangely exhilarated. Whether it was nerves or excitement, something blossomed in Tim’s chest as he finally accepted the fact that he had indeed found an unexpected ally in AUSA David Vasquez. 

\- 

It wasn’t until after the Christmas holidays that Tim realized he got away with never having to see a psychiatrist. Things went too fast at the start, and there were always more pressing concerns than his mental health.

Tim knew it was also the likely case that, because he’d told Raylan he _had_ a psychiatrist, maybe Raylan told Art he’d seen her. Tim considered coming clean and apologizing to Art for that specific matter, but knew it would only serve to put his ass on a fainting couch and his boss’ across from HR and oversight review. It was a poor position either way. 

Initially, Tim didn’t want word of his assault going around, which it surely would have if he’d had to explain being pulled from active duty any longer than his broken ankle allowed. This, and relinquishing his firearm when Raylan--who seemed to trade in his weapons like Pokemon cards--hadn’t been given a similar order would surely raise eyebrows. 

Art had never called for it and for the first time, Tim figured that the reason wasn’t so Art could avoid him. Rather, it was Tim’s expediency--not Art’s.

A few weeks after the bust and meeting each day with new and encouraging legal babble from AUSA Vasquez had Tim feeling good.

 _Good._ Better, even. Tim mulled the concept around for another two weeks, thinking he was cautiously closing in on something real.

\- 

On a Tuesday afternoon in January, Tim took a long lunch. He drove around Lexington with a greasy hamburger in his car until he’d found an empty parking lot to eat it in. He stared at nothing but empty space and yellow lines. It was some medium-sized American city version of a desert, Tim thought. And he felt appropriately hidden by virtue of being alone. 

The call he placed to his former psychiatrist was a brief one. Tim may have even short-handed the entire matter to, _I need a doctor’s note for work._

That was an outright lie; Tim had already decided not to report his visit. Besides from the Marshals office, Tim didn’t want to leave anything to chance with his doctor’s secretary, even though he had Carol’s private cell number and had spoken to her directly. In a concerted effort to keep the overdue nature of the visit mum, he’d arrange and pay for the session himself. The entire visit was an attempt to reassure himself that _feeling better_ wasn’t something he’d fooled himself into. He _did_ feel better, and Tim could think of no better test of this than sitting before a professional. 

Initially, Tim hadn’t liked Carol--or, more to the point, the idea of Carol. The visits were mandatory, however, and Tim’s seeing her was only at the suggestion of an Army friend, another of Carol’s patients. Yet she’d often asked after his friends--namely, if he had made any in Kentucky--as if she didn’t know P.J., her four o’clock, Tim’s former-spotter and then-drinking buddy. He mentioned Mark, and eventually came to mask P.J. in mystery, teasingly calling him just another soldier in the area he’d known from his last tour. Still, Carol hadn’t seemed satisfied and wanted to encourage new acquaintances and interests. As a result, there was the art therapy debacle, which Tim remembered all too well. It had put him on strange grounds with his landlord, for one. (In the interview for the apartment, Tim explained he was ex-military, to which Mahit pursued, _“What do you do, now?”_ Tim answered, _“Mostly I fingerpaint.”_ For weeks, Mahit had politely asked Tim how his art was coming along. Finally, Tim had to tell him he’d given up on his dream and become a Deputy U.S. Marshal instead.)

Things had improved, of course--enough that Tim felt confident in returning to her place of business in downtown Lexington. 

“Tim,” Carol smiled encouragingly and opened the door to her office for him. He noticed she’d redesigned the place around a Persian carpet she’d returned with during her last visit to her husband’s childhood home in Isfahan. She’d showed it to him, then--almost a year ago, now. It had been rolled up and kept in a storage space attached to her office space. 

They’d discussed the region before during some of their earlier meetings. Carol’s love-affair with the culture was apparent, but Tim’s experience had been soured by his purpose there. He wasn’t sightseeing around beautiful cities teeming with historic influences; he was operating out of crawl spaces in shitty villages.

To Tim, Dr. Carol Larson-Veisi still looked the same: her severe blonde bob was softened by the wool sweaters she’d wear at any time of the year. Today’s was pink, loosely-knitted, and hanging like a sheer haze over her crisp white oxford shirt. 

“I’m glad you agreed to meet so promptly,” she smiled. “On the phone, you sounded--”

“It’s not an emergency,” Tim assured. It hadn’t been three full days since he’d called. 

“Tim,” Carol pressed, gesturing Tim to join her inside, and making the following argument: “You’ve never called to set up a meeting with me.” _I’ll call it what I like,_ went unsaid. “On the phone, you sounded anxious. How are you feeling?”

Tim looked around her spacious office, relearning its layout. “Hopeful, I guess,” he looked at the cherry red carpet under his boots, seeing its color matched in splotches all over the room, “That I didn’t make a mistake coming here.”

The look on Carol’s face said to him that it was never a mistake to seek help, but Tim had his doubts. “Sit down. Can you explain?” 

Sat in front of a long window, Tim felt the sun warm his neck. While light carried through, Tim remembered Carol once telling him _no,_ the window didn’t open. It was during his first visit and Tim had been anxious and the room felt stuffy; worse, too, after he figured she’d pegged him for a jumper. 

Shedding his jacket and resting it across an arm of the couch, Tim then took his seat across from Carol’s chair, which was positioned next to a small stand where she kept a mug of tea, a pen, and a small buttery-brown colored moleskine notebook (“From Italy,” she’d told him, because she was proud of her travels in a way that people who lived their whole lives in one town often were). Tim recognized the latter item because she’d given him one of his own to write his thoughts and questions in, prior to their visits. Tim still knew where his was--in the kitchen cabinet, under his watch and the warranty to his refrigerator, as pristine and empty as they day he’d received it.

Tim offered a muted explanation of how he was meant to see a professional after an incident at work, but through word of mouth and dumb luck, he hadn’t done so. 

Carol took up her mug of tea with both hands. A trick, Tim thought, to mollify her patients’ concern about the moleskine notebook. “Can you tell me about the incident?”

Tim shrugged a shoulder. “It’s been over three months.”

“I’m worried about your ability to recall detail, Tim, but not in the way you’re thinking.” Again, she imparted her encouraging smile. “Start at the beginning.”

After reminding himself why he’d arranged the appointment in the first place, Tim began to speak in detail about the event. The story came forth like he was reading from a report he'd filed, not recounting a singular, awful occurrence in his life, something that cost him sleep and strained every relationship he valued. He seemed to realize this and when he’d nearly finished, Tim tacked on what he felt about the ordeal--at least, what he could manage to put into words. 

“Sometimes I don’t think about it at all. I’m doing something at work or sitting in traffic, and I’m focused. I’m good.” Tim was quiet a moment, and to Carol it looked as though he was physically chewing on his next words. “And sometimes it’s all in my head. It’s _all there is_ in my head. It's everything, all at once. It sucks.” 

It was a simple admission, possibly even less than he’d given up when inebriated and drinking with Raylan. But in the open, sunny room with an audience of one, Tim seemed to have heard himself for the first time. He heard the defeat weighing down his words and the sadness cracking in every syllable. It was a jarring experience and left Tim feeling incredibly embarrassed as he found himself wondering if his shattered voice was some other physical wound garnered that day in October. Or had he always harbored a twinge of corruption--of _failure_ \--but mistaken it for his accent because it had always sounded so familiar, it must have been natural, not learned?

When Tim next spoke, he really listened to himself. 

It was this redirection of his focus that kept him from curtailing his answers, and when he finished he didn’t like what he’d heard. 

Tim mentioned the hospital and subsequent clinic visits, and how waiting for his test results was like listening for signs of life after an ambush--you didn’t want to hear the gurgle of life, you’d rather see a man mowed down than left for dead. The sleeping pills, Tim said were a highlight. They afforded him a singular escape, a euphoric sense of unbeing. 

Even without prompting, however, Tim’s mind circled back to the event, and he found himself making the argument for something Carol would never dream of challenging. “I didn’t fuck up,” Tim insisted. _I went quiet. I didn’t get us killed. I got us out alive._

It didn’t seem to be enough anymore that Tim and Raylan had come out of the attack alive. Tim only felt now that he’d stumbled, afterwards, when he should have been riding high. 

His voice receded into something hollow and distant. “And then I fucked everything up.” _Raylan. Art. Rachel. Jeff._

Tim recalled the instances he would make dinner only to just stare at it, suddenly too disgusted to eat. (Tim also recalled, but didn’t share, one of the reasons having Jeff around felt beneficial to him. Too prideful to show such weakness, Tim performed for Jeff. He ate all his veggies and stayed up through whatever movie they were watching and gave phenomenal head afterwards, just to spite the hour he’d spent hovering over a piece of toast, sick with himself.) 

Of all the anxiety, ache, and sadness Tim maneuvered through over the past three months, he concluded with a shrug, “It’s like Afghanistan, sometimes. And I’ve been waiting--I _keep waiting_ \--to just stop feeling so... _much_ about it.”

For a moment, Tim avoided making eye contact with Carol. When he finally did, she saw that he’d reassembled his armor. 

“But hey,” he said, eyes crinkling with a kind of mirth he didn’t feel in his heart. “It ain’t all bad.”

It was so blasé and easy that it struck Carol all the more, having heard the truth of the matter. A tiny crease fell between her eyes and her chin wrinkled like a walnut; it was the most expression the normally restrained psychiatrist had shown with one of her patients. 

“Sorry,” Tim said, watching as Carol bent her head to her notebook again.

She glanced up, her eyes round and questioning.

Tim smoothed his hands down the fronts of his trousers; they were black denim, well-worn and almost soft to the touch. But to Tim, it felt like rubbing velvet the wrong way, or drawing one’s hand along an unfinished piece of wood furniture, inviting that awful tingling feeling of suspense and dread. Tim couldn’t help but grimace. “You look a little sad.”

Carol didn’t know where her head was at when she stood from her chair opposite Tim and chose to join him on the couch. 

“Oh shit,” Tim joked, but didn’t inch away. She stared at him, willing him to understand her and her words and the honesty bound up within them. 

“I am so sorry, Tim,” she told him. A wisp of her platinum blonde hair crossed her face and Tim stared at it instead of her eyes. “I am so sorry this happened to you.”

“It’s a great tragedy, so I’m told,” Tim countered mutedly. 

Carol was not deterred. “But I am immensely proud that you decided to trust and speak with me today. You may not feel you’re getting your money’s worth, but I must repeat what I told you during our earliest sessions: talking about traumatic events is important. Talking about and understanding these events is _key_ to your recovery.”

Tim disagreed completely. There wasn’t a single scenario in which he could imagine keeping quiet-- _keeping Raylan quiet_ \--would not have been beneficial. 

Tim nodded absently. “Yes, okay. I remember. But before you even ask, the answer’s no. I don’t want to do the group therapy thing. It was a bad decision with the PTSD, and,” Tim stopped, realizing he was speaking quickly, like he only ever did when angry. He took a breath and made sure Carol understood him. “Just--no.” 

He listened as she explained why she’d like for Tim to talk more in-depth about his assault. Tim said, “No problem.” 

Intellectually, Tim understood the situation, the division of power, and the reason he was involved at all. 

Why him and not Raylan? Carol posed this question, and Tim frowned and answered simply: _“Because he was in the trunk.”_

But his mind was racing with a wealth of harsher answers: Because Raylan was taller and bigger and might prove a less manageable target. Because the driver’s friend had commented on Tim’s blonde hair and tight ass. Because he kicked with precision and could deliver a boot to the eye of his enemy as easy as he could a bullet. Because Tim had given hell not to be tied down or overpowered and in the end, he simply was. Because he was alone and he got tired. Because the friend bound one leg, then the other. Because Tim couldn’t summon the strength to break his own ankle to twist out of the man’s hold, to stop what he suddenly felt was inevitable. Because he didn’t want this more than anything he could imagine. Because the driver cheered his friend on. Because it was funny that Tim refused to cry out and bit into the leather interior, instead (“Is he a pillow-biter or a Chevy-chewer?”). Because eventually, when the pain was too much, Tim yelled for Raylan and didn’t get a reply. Because it seemed appropriate.

When asked to elaborate, Tim shrugged. “It wouldn’t be him. The shit he gets himself into--it’s fucking theatre. It’s Shakespeare. There are family grudges and, like, intertwined hillbilly bloodlines and shit. This was,” Tim laced and unlaced his hands, splaying out his long fingers as if he was holding all that he could amount of the event. “ _Small potatoes._ It wasn’t a duel in the town square, it was--contained.” _In the backseat of a Chevy._

Tim wet his lips and suddenly felt like the controlled expression on Carol’s face and her close proximity were challenges leveled at his answers. He switched gears, tackling what had never been in doubt. “Bottom line? I believe that Raylan would be dead if I hadn’t gone along with him. I was some extra body, so they hesitated. Kill both? Dump me some place?” 

_Amateurs._ The idea had burrowed into his skull the second Tim and Raylan had pulled up to the Clemens’ place, and was born out quite clearly given every misstep. “When you’re not dealing with experts,” Tim explained, “you see shit like this. One unexpected thing and suddenly the whole plan goes to shit. Smart move’d by to shoot Raylan. Hell, he stepped into the firefight, himself. But, oh shit, _two Marshals?_ No-one brought an extra bullet.” Tim laced up his hands again so that they were solid; a heavy clapper in some bell Tim wasn’t sounding. “So, in that respect, I’m fine with it. I’m fine with what happened.” 

Carol made a note in her book--Tim glanced at it but found her penmanship more indecipherable than his own. “You’ve explained why it wasn’t appropriate that Raylan would be harmed in such a way,” Carol began gently, “Does that mean it was appropriate that you were?”

Tim had read the pamphlets, done the required sensitivity training at Glynco, and _knew_ he didn’t deserve anything that happened to him--but that didn’t stop him from rationalizing it. He looked at his hands resting in his lap and even though he didn’t feel it, he knew he was whole. He smiled some. “Everyone loses their mind a little bit in war. I didn’t lose anything else--I figured I was due.”

Carol closed her notebook.

“It wasn’t because you’re gay?”

Carol didn’t fuck around.

 _This question,_ Tim recognized it at once, simultaneously noting that if it sounded at all _like a serious question,_ that was for his benefit. Tim fired his ready and loaded arsenal of, “Oh, no, that was dumb luck.” He grinned and added with flourish, _“Serendipity.”_

“Tim.” And in that moment, Carol reminded him of Rachel, and Tim averted his eyes and shook his head. 

“There’s no way he knew,” Tim said begrudgingly. “Though--and I say this to keep you happy--I did shed one single, pitiable, salty tear wondering if Weaver had _somehow_ known, then it wouldn’t have happened.” Even though his tone was thick and wet with sarcasm, speaking the words left a bad taste in Tim’s mouth. He knew some phrase like _referendum on his closetedness_ was bouncing around in Carol’s mind, and he sought to crush it. “They’d have probably just killed me,” Tim reasoned. Then, with a wry smile, he joked: “That’s fine. I get that.”

Carol asked what else he’d done since October. Tim mentioned the SOG assignments and the bust that ultimately led to a slew of arrests. 

“So really, this is just a part of my victory lap.”

The moleskine notebook arose from the depths of fiery hell and came to rest on Carol’s knee as she scribbled--almost violently, Tim noticed--at his mention of SOG. 

“I didn’t join the A-Team,” Tim huffed. “It’s just SOG. They’re U.S. Marshal Service, same as the rest of us. They blow through town, and sometimes I’m of use.” 

The tilt of her head and pursing of her lips joined to create the exact expression Tim thought a psychiatrist ought to make when thinking, _Hmm, interesting._ Tim supposed her next question was his own fault, given that he’d equated SOG with _a crack commando unit_ betrayed by their government and surviving as _soldiers of fortune._

“You don’t see yourself as a Deputy U.S. Marshal, do you? You still see a soldier.” 

“I’m good at my job,” Tim said, thinking that was the argument to make. “Whatever is asked of me, I can do.” 

“That was your life as a soldier,” Carol returned. 

“That’s any life, done well.” From earlier meetings, he remembered Carol’s comments on whether or not he felt subjugated into military life at the expense of his civilian self. And because it had earned him another three visits, Tim had always regretted his reply of: _“That’s the fucking point.”_

Carol smoothed out the fabric of her slacks; Tim noticed they had a razor-sharp crease down the front, leading like an arrow to her knifepoint-esque red shoes. With the rest of her pink and white ensemble, she looked like a severe, slightly threatening Valentine’s Day card. “You’re a hard worker, Tim. But your job as a Deputy doesn’t demand that you sacrifice-- _least of all_ \--your nights and weekends to Raylan and the SOG team.”

“I get paid well for it,” Tim dismissed with a weak shrug--not because the point was invalid, but because it wasn’t why he did it. “That ain’t like soldiering.”

Tim began to see the same old argument unfurl before him, like a red carpet, and he was meant to grin and bear the trip. Tim raised a tired hand; he still believed in his task of testing himself, seeing that he’d come out of things in the right. And feeling accomplished in that manner required the resurrection of just one more topic. 

“There’s--something else. Someone else.”

Tim made no attempt to shield or mask how very much _in the wrong_ he’d been in his relations with Jeff. Using Jeff like a mirror, trying to gauge a normal sense of self, something to mimic as well as fulfill... Tim’s efforts were--at best--a waste of Jeff’s time. At worst, Tim was guilty of a great and intimate betrayal of trust. By the end of his explanation, Tim did not bother to report that he’d put an end to things. It hardly seemed worth mentioning. 

Tim offered that more recently, they’d struck up a kind of friendship in lieu of anything sexual. On New Years, Tim went back to Jeff’s bar, paid for his own drinks, and smiled apologetically after hearing a regular compliment Jeff’s new Jeep. 

Although they were sat next to one another and Tim couldn’t see her face, he doubted Carol looked at all judgmental. It was at once infuriating and the one saving grace of his appointments. 

“Did you engage in sex with this man?”

Tim’s expression remained blank. “I really gotta answer that?”

Initiating the few sexual encounters he had wasn’t entirely self-serving, and didn’t feel entirely wrong. Tim liked kissing and being close and sucking cock a lot of the time, but its premise wasn’t sound.

“If these were normal circumstances, Tim, I couldn’t press the matter. But I think we both know why I’m asking, and why you ought to answer.” She leaned forward and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Or we could continue to talk around it, if you’d like.” 

Tim sunk into the couch, digging deep into the corner he’d claimed. “What was the question? Sex? No. Well--yes. Uh, oral.” Scrubbing a hand over his face, Tim couldn’t fathom why he felt so embarrassed answering a simple question. He’d said as much to Raylan, even if his comments were blunt and delivered with a kind of confidence easily mistaken for humor. “But it was always me who--well, hell.” Tim was frustrated now. “How about you, Carol? You gettin’ any?”

“Yes,” Carol confirmed easily. “Just this morning.”

Tim grinned at the floor. “Cool.” 

He raked a hand through his hair and killed time scratching at an itch along the nape of his neck. “Just--some. And then nothing. And when I realized he was over my shit I,” Tim hedged, a little ashamed. “I really went for it. I performed admirably.” 

“You didn’t want anything more?” 

“Nope,” Tim lied. He wondered if Carol could read the truth on his face--the fact that one of the few things he remembered from his weekend encounter with Jeff was wanting the man to fuck him. In a moment of clarity amidst his drunken state, Tim reasoned, _nope, that’s fucked up,_ and endeavored, instead, to safeguard against such an occurrence. 

He could imagine how explaining that to Carol would earn him a slew of later visits. 

_I decided I couldn’t let him fuck me. So I had to date him._ To Tim, it sounded like a punch-line.

A shift in the air and the whine of leather told Tim Carol had left the couch. He wasn’t paying enough attention to notice it otherwise. He knew the meeting was at an end but he couldn’t help but want for more time. His competitive streak had him thinking of how to give the effort another shot because he’d--failed. 

Tim couldn’t avoid the term. 

The notion of ever feeling good, _better_ was suddenly alien to him. He remembered Raylan finding him with his pants down--literally--and felt that same humiliation race through him like waters from a geyser. Worse than being seized by such shame was the fact that this time, he’d willingly invited it. From her desk, Carol spared Tim a concerned look before flipping through her calendar. Maybe a little of the feeling showed on his face. 

Tim smothered it and put on a crooked grin. 

“I feel so much better,” he teased humorlessly. His voice was raw and stripped down. Tim imagined paint chips serrating his throat, aware that he sounded torn and probably looked the part. “Therapy is a wonder.” 

“I’d like to start seeing you again, Tim. How does that sound to you?”

Even feeling like he did, Tim could focus. He wouldn’t have Carol repeat the question, so he started to nod. It didn’t strike him as the worst idea, which surprised Tim. He ran his hands down the fabric of his trousers again, as if he thought his palms were sweaty. They weren’t. “Yeah, all right. Sounds good, Carol.”

And very quietly, Tim resolved to stay in Kentucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had only intended 10 chapters, but decided I had more terrible things queued up for our hero. Also, zucchini chili. And maybe resolution or closure or some shit. Next chapter will be the last! Thanks everyone for sticking with it! :D
> 
>  
> 
> Final chapter preview: _One morning, Tim awoke in a strange place._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim faces a few more tests--some self-imposed, some designed only for failure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been slow goings, you guys, but this is finally the end! Thanks for sticking with it. :) And thank you all for reading and leaving comments. It has been an absolute blast to read what you guys think as I pretended to know where I was going with this fic for seven months. :P

At Carol’s urging, Tim stopped using sleeping pills--even the over-the-counter brands--only to find that all he did was sleep. It was always light, and just on the edge of a dream or a nightmare. Tim never faltered on his 6:30 internal alarm, but he found himself returning from work, kicking off his shoes, and enveloping himself between sheets and blankets and what he was told by a perky sales clerk was a _duvet._

And he’d suddenly feel _exhausted._

He’d sleep and awake dry-mouthed, tasting his pillow, sometimes sweating and always in dire need of a shower. 

One morning, Tim awoke in a strange place. 

It was his bedroom, because he recognized the weird corner of wall where the paint didn’t quite match, and the spot on the carpet where the light from the window had left it somewhat sun-damaged, and the things. His things, he knew, except he didn’t feel anything for them. 

Tim sat up in bed and thought about how that wasn’t so strange; they were just things--books and DVDs. Clothes. An iPhone and X-Box. His badge and gun. 

Tim watched the space between the foot of his bed and his open door for almost twenty minutes before understanding that he was waiting for something to happen, for himself to enter the room. 

The realization came like a fist down his throat, reaching for and stealing the breath from his lungs. Tim rubbed forcibly at his chest, massaged the flesh until he was certain he’d bruised himself. Still, it hurt. Something inside him had cinched up, been knotted, and then severed. Curling back into bed, Tim buried his face into his pillow. It was warm where his head had been and a little damp with sweat and soon--tears. 

Tim didn’t make a sound.

Three hours later the phone calls and texts began. Tim listened to the cheap trilling of his phone for a while, trying to recognize the sound and its progression as urgent. He failed to do so, and it wasn’t until after noon that he snaked a hand out from under the covers and replied to the most recent text-- _Seriously, Tim_ \--that he needed the day. 

_Won’t be in. Sick._

Then, Tim turned off his phone and let it drop to the floor. He didn’t care if he ever saw its bright little screen again. He hoped a sinkhole would open up and swallow the thing, and then Tim’s bed, and then Tim, and--

“I am one morose motherfucker.” 

Tim managed to speak the words. All the syllables, there, together, ordered like a miracle. Tim followed up his brilliant one-man-show with a failed attempt to get out of bed. He could hardly lift his head from his pillow, but he did try--only to drop it again, heavy as stone. He laid there instead, thinking more about sinkholes. 

\- 

The bizarre episode was only the beginning of the week Tim took off work and ceased to function. 

He hardly left his bed to begin with--only to use the restroom, really--but the act occurred less and less as he drank so little. A fire lit on his pillow couldn’t have driven him out from under the sheets. Nothing concerned him. He managed to send only one more text to excuse his further absence: _Contagious._

It was as though something had gripped him and stayed any level of movement. Tim could picture a hand like a vice around his internal organs, bits of intestine bubbling out between thick white knuckles. Suddenly, the idea of getting out of bed didn’t conjure up images of work, downtown Lexington, his desk, or the courthouse. Two aching steps away from his bed, and Tim only saw certain disembowelment. 

Tim spent three long days in bed. Only when reflecting on them later did he see see his stay as wholly embarrassing, but this was after his head was clear enough that he recognized what he was doing. On Friday, Tim sat up in bed, the pain in his gut finally replaced by a hollow hunger. He still felt as though a heavy tumor was growing from the fleshy spindles of his heart, but used the phantom weight as leverage to hang over a phone call. He called Carol and although she was out of town and couldn’t meet with him, she told Tim she’d been considering prescribing something for him. It didn’t feel like a betrayal, because it didn’t feel like anything. 

“Okay,” Tim said, more as though he’d heard her and not so much an expression of his compliance. It took several hours convincing himself to get out of bed and go to the pharmacy. No lie he could tell himself sounded better than staying at home, waiting for the pain and humiliation to subside--hell, _even if it didn’t._ Tim sat frustrated, his back to the door, until stumbling upon the one line that would work without fail: _that’s an order._

Carol had only told him to pick up a prescription--not to start taking them. Stalled at a stoplight only a block away from the pharmacy, Tim realized he’d merely been given a task to fulfil. Like he’d told her--lifting his head, standing, venturing outside his apartment walls... that was the hard part. While Tim didn’t doubt the inevitable presence of pharmaceuticals in his life, he reasoned Carol’s first objective was to get him out of bed, on an errand. 

Even at the pharmacy of the nearest grocery, however--the task well within his reach--Tim considered not accepting his medication. He kept moving to the back of the line, feigning the need to immediately grab a different brand of deodorant or toothpaste. 

And like she’d been sent there, Rachel appeared, a prescription to fill for her mother in her hand. Her nephew Nick was in tow, carrying a small shopping basket laden with zucchinis, peppers, onions, and Gummy Bears.

“The essentials,” Tim observed, letting her in ahead. It wasn’t much of a favor in a line of five.

“We’re having zucchini chili for dinner,” Nick said, not sounding especially enthused. 

Rachel’s eyes hadn’t left Tim since spotting him among the stunted isles of ointments and vitamins. Tim met her stare now--he was too smart to try avoiding it--but his expression said nothing. Rachel took the shopping basket from Nick and proposed, “Why don’t you go pick out a DVD?” Nick was off like a rocket, leaving Rachel to call after him uselessly, “Something grandma will watch!”

“What’s going on?” she asked quietly, and when Tim only shrugged she pressed, “Come on,” and waved an errant hand toward the direction of Nick’s plunder of the electronics section. “I just paid $19.99 to know.”

“You paid $19.99 to _ask._ ”

Rachel pursed her lips and when the line moved an inch, Tim moved with her. It wasn’t until Rachel had retrieved her mother’s prescription and stood a few feet away, waiting for Tim to clear the line, that they spoke again. 

Tim stuffed the white paper bag into his coat pocket and nodded as he moved to pass Rachel.  
 _“Have a good night,”_ he started to say, but was interrupted by Rachel’s dogged invitation: “Come have dinner with us.”

Tim’s first instinct was to lie, to issue a short _thanks, but lielielielielie._ What came out instead was completely honest. 

Tim told her plainly, simply-- _“I can’t.”_

\- 

A few hours later, Rachel appeared at his door with leftover spicy zucchini chili and rice encased in mismatched colorful tupperware. “Have dinner with me,” she implored in that sweet Tennessee voice with which she could wrangle Raylan into any task or errand. Her coo was tried and tested with Tim, as well. 

Tim let her in and without prompting, she reasoned away her absence at home: “Nick and my mom are on a Star Trek movie binge. He found the first eight in the bargain bin.”

“ _Insurrection_ was a travesty, anyway.” 

“That’s what Nick said,” Rachel said, eyes shining. “More or less. You two would really get on.”

“Well we do wear the same size basketball shorts.” 

The television was on. They set the containers between them on the couch and shared a dinner date. 

Tim knew he had to focus. He wanted her gone but had to be smart about it. If he could convince her what he’d been feeling the last week was just a _funk_ , it wasn’t such a leap to believe he’d shaken it. Because he knew he hadn’t, Tim was faced with another reality: moments like these--feeling trapped, watched, and tired--lasting nine hours a day, five days a week. 

Even heated, the meal tasted like wet cardboard, which Tim knew couldn’t be right because Rachel excelled in all things, and cooking was well among them. Still, it was more than he’d eaten all week, and his gut was sounding alarms. 

“I wish you’d talk to me,” Rachel said, picking at her home cooking. 

Tim forced a smile. “I hear enough of my bullshit in therapy. Believe me, it ain’t that interesting. I put myself to sleep.” 

Rachel smacked her lips after a bite of chili, pleased that Tim had at least answered her. “See, already this visit has been illuminating. What else have you been up to on your extended vacation?”

Tim brought another spoonful of chili and rice to his mouth, eyes trained on the television as some late night comedy host began his monologue. “Nothing. How’s work?” Tim dropped his gaze and stared at the rest of the meal in the container as he chewed, wondering how to pace out the bite so as to avoid speaking again. 

Rachel humored him and answered in vague generalities until delving into a story about Deputy Dunlop, an impressive bit of investigative work, and a job well done. 

“Raylan patted him on the back and I swear, Dunlop swooned.” 

Tim forced another smile and stared unseeingly at the television. Laughter filled the room in a low buzz. 

He knew he couldn’t continue pretending nothing was wrong--not entirely, anyway. Rachel was too perceptive for that. The tupperware containers were soon empty and Jay Leno was talentless; Tim had nothing left to hide behind. 

In the midst of some indiscernible gag, he lowered the volume and mumbled his concerns about taking the medication prescribed by his psychiatrist. This, only when he felt he’d kept Rachel away from her family for too long and owed her something. It was the piece of information she’d worked for, after all--never mind that it was Tim’s personal and private concern. 

“That’s all I got,” Tim said as Rachel waited patiently for more explanation. He spoke a little harshly, as if he’d forgotten his audience. This was _Rachel_ , not Art. Art, who had the authority to take such knowledge and dismantle Tim’s career with it if he thought it would _help._ _Rachel._ Not Raylan, who parsed Tim’s every word, looking for hidden absolution. 

_Rachel_ was unconvinced. “I know you, Tim. And you know protocol.” She put the remnants of her meal on the table and Tim did the same. She moved to face him on the couch. Tim’s activity was no cardinal sin; in a high-stress job such as theirs, there wasn’t a Marshal alive who didn’t sometimes need additional means of coping. “What’s this really about?”

Tim’s face screwed up into an unimpressed frown. He gave Rachel a thumbs up. “Way to be dismissive, partner. Real glad we had this chat.”

Rachel rolled her eyes and swatted at Tim’s hand. “Way to think so little of me, _partner_. You don’t get down on yourself, you don’t _do_ this.”

In some strange way, Rachel was very much in Tim’s cheering section, even if to Tim her words carried little else than doubt. “I’m not feeling much like myself,” Tim said, hoping for better reception of his second honest admission. 

She sighed and eyed her nails; she couldn’t argue with that. Tim hadn’t seemed much like himself, lately. Rachel believed there was something else going on, some further incident Tim hadn’t made her privy to, or Raylan was somehow able to keep quiet about. She found and held Tim’s gaze, thinking the truth might reveal itself if she leaned on him some. 

She didn’t like having to resort to this tactic, but--

Rachel remembered the split second in the pharmacy before Tim spotted her. She’d watched him, dumbfounded. He was anxious and hurting--overtly so. The most expressive Rachel had ever seen Tim outside of shouting down a fugitive was when he received the wrong coffee order, and a slight frown tugged at his lips, and you’d have thought someone spat in it rather than made it with skim milk, not whole. 

In the past few months, he’d gone from bad to worse. More than a sorry sight, Rachel found it on the verge of unfathomable that her pragmatic partner could not somehow will himself well again. In her time knowing him, Rachel believed there wasn’t an obstacle Tim couldn’t overcome. 

But in the pharmacy, Rachel couldn’t deny what she’d seen: Tim was defeated.

Tim blinked and dropped his stare, his face flush as though he’d heard Rachel’s thoughts. “You keep looking at me like I’ve got some great new revelation for you, but I don’t.” He stood up and collected their dishes with untoward aggression, cluing Rachel in to another illuminating fact: tough love put him on the defensive. “Depression, repression, PTSD. Take your fucking pick.”

Tim looked ready to stalk off into the kitchen and further express his frustration by roughhousing with dishware, but something in Rachel’s cool demeanor kept him glued to the spot and his mind went blank save for her, and whatever ruling she’d bring down over him. 

Rachel quirked her perfectly arched brows. “I’ll keep my fingers outta that particular grab bag, thanks,” she said, unmoved. She took a showy slurp of her ice water. Inside, she harbored no such confidence. But she put on the show Tim needed: a roll of her eyes, a _fine, whatever_ attitude towards the leap he was taking.

Tim ducked his head and hid his smirk. That he’d even entertained the notion of shaking Rachel was ludicrous. Planning to shuffle her out of his apartment before she’d decided it was her time was embarrassing for him, and Rachel made sure he knew it. 

“Is that still an option?” Tim asked in every shade of self-deprecating charm that it struck her as an apology and she smiled back its acceptance. 

“I could tell you about how shitty my mom has been acting over my divorce with Joe,” Rachel offered the diversion like a gift, perfectly wrapped and tempting. She rested her head over Tim’s couch and watched a sideways version of the Marshal deposit their dishes in the sink and fill the sink with water. He was all slow moves and gestures--too slow to suggest ease. He was unfocused and scattered. 

Rachel had always known about Tim something his psychiatrist had taken pains to discover: he liked characters and stories. He’d occupied his head with them during a particularly gruesome war, and while there was something irreplaceable forged among his fellow Army Rangers, there was another bond--a self-perpetuating assurance in his own head intertwined with the stories and the targets occupying them--that Tim could never unlearn. 

It was the reason Raylan thought Tim was a good judge of character and could read people; he couldn’t, really, but he’d had the entirety of his twenties to imagine and know the character archetypes. His military-oriented mind filled in the spaces with whatever else he picked up. Tim, Rachel knew, read every file he pulled--witness, suspect, relations. 

The whole cast of characters. 

What were a few more characters, she mused, even if they were _her_ relations? 

“Sure,” Tim answered from the kitchen. “You want a beer?”

Rachel smoothed her hair back. “How much do you want to know?”

“I’ll get ya two.” 

“Mm. And keep ‘em coming, if you don’t mind me spending the night on your couch.” 

While all the Marshals had spent a fair number of late evenings together, Tim and Rachel stood apart in the spread of hotels they’d shared in pursuit of state-hopping fugitives, or other all-night ventures. The odd side-of-the-road stakeout came to mind. (Art claimed the assignments were due to their easy work relationship; Rachel knew it was their lack of spouses and children. Tim had a strange affinity for vending machine food, and never complained about the shitty set-ups either way.) Crashing on Tim’s couch (although both knew Tim would insist she take the bed) wouldn’t be a first in any measure, save for the location. 

Rachel found the television remote and changed the channel to what looked like a nature documentary, then set it on mute. 

Tim returned with a six pack of beers under one arm, and two bottles of bourbon under the other. 

“I said _the night,_ ” Rachel balked as Tim relinquished the spread. “I’m not looking to slip into a coma.”

“My last hurrah,” Tim said by way of an explanation. Rachel silently saw it as her duty to help Tim put a dent in his collection, knowing it would be better for him--and his liver--not to take on the challenge alone.

Rachel accepted one of the beers and popped off the cap on the corner of Tim’s coffee table. The wood bore telltale signs of wear from exactly that use, and Tim grinned and looked at the ceiling, pretending to have the good grace to be embarrassed. He wasn’t; he’d seen the move done in a movie once when he was no older than five, and had never stopped being cool.

“Need me to do yours?” Rachel asked sweetly. 

Tim smoothed a hand over his hair. “It might just turn me to see you do that again,” he teased, surrendering his drink. “Go for it.” 

Rachel laughed and uncapped Tim’s beer, then waited a beat. “Nothing?”

Tim held on a moment more, again staring--eyes narrowed--at the ceiling as if searching his mind for something. “Damn,” he swore. “Nothin’ doin’. So close, though.” He took a long sip of beer and gestured for Rachel to begin her sordid tale. 

“Mm,” Tim raised a hand and leaned forward, but was so intent on finishing his drink that a little amber-colored liquid dribbled down his chin. “One question before you start,” he said, wiping his mouth and looking seriously contemplative. It had Rachel briefly wondering if he did, in fact, want a refresher on all the details of her marriage, before all the shit and the hindsight. Tim set his beer down on the table and steepled his hands under his chin and sported a small, professorial frown. “Did you intend _Sharktopus_ as a visual aid...?”

Rachel looked over her shoulder to find that the supposed nature documentary she’d settled on was in fact a SyFy masterpiece. Rachel turned her attention back to Tim, again unfazed. “Exhibit A,” she declared, gesturing at the tentacled mutation with her beer bottle, “my mother’s hold on my love life.” 

\- 

Rachel didn’t drink very much, so her staying the night with Tim was a formality, really. She’d at least drunk enough that when she looked at Tim, she couldn’t will herself to smile. And Tim couldn’t stop smiling, buzzed and blissed out and warm. He listened to her story, and was drunk by its end. 

She left Tim to sleep off his hangover, and drove herself home Saturday morning. She didn’t see Tim again until Monday. 

They worked a quiet week, running the usual prison transfers and keeping up with their respective caseloads. The only excitement came from a supposed run-of-the-mill break-in that came to be two fugitives stealing from one another, although wrangling a case out of the hands of local PD was never a quiet affair for Art. 

Tim, meanwhile, was meeting more frequently with Carol, and slowly increasing and altering his prescriptions. Three weeks in and he’d dismissed several drugs based on the side-effects. Insomnia, he could handle. But getting the shits during a stakeout was a deal breaker. He managed only low doses, not yet convinced anything greater was absolutely necessary. Whether it was a natural uptick in needless bravado or the slow work of new chemicals in his body, Tim felt the need to again test himself. 

On a chilly Tuesday, Tim called and invited Jeff over for dinner. 

-

“Well shit,” Tim drawled, taking in the view of Jeff’s dark, full beard from the doorway. “I got out just in time.” 

Jeff sidestepped Tim’s wide, stupid grin. “You don’t like it? I think it looks good. Rugged.” 

Ice caked the soles of his boots and snow had drifted through his hair and sandwiched itself between the two twin collars of his coat and shirt. Tim’s apartment was pleasantly warm, and the snow quickly melted into a cool sweat. Jeff shed his heavy coat and raked a hand over his head in search of any stray snowflakes. He wore a red plaid shirt that had practically faded to pink. It was half-tucked into his snug jeans. Noticing Tim’s bare feet, Jeff took a knee and yanked at the laces of his boots. 

“Oh sure, now I see it,” Tim stood above him and nodded appraisingly. “But I can’t look directly at it. I’m getting flashbacks.” 

Tim had his hands deep in his pockets and when he inclined his head, Jeff caught the barest strip of skin caught between the hem of Tim’s Army green t-shirt and the waist of his black jeans. Beyond that--and for Jeff, it took some effort to tear his eyes away from that flash of belly--Tim looked good. Fit, like Jeff had remembered. His face was finally clear of any bruising or blood, and his hair--though still long--was not greased back with unnecessary product. Better yet, he was constantly working to repress a big smile. 

Tim had prepared dinner for two, a task he figured he could manage because they were both adult men and needed to eat. He made burgers and awkwardly covered for himself, saying it wasn’t a throwback to their first date post-bedwetting; burgers were the only thing he could make. 

“But if it’s too much I can drive you around ‘til we hit a deer, then marinate it with the sap you squeeze with your bare hands from an entire forest of sugar maples,” Tim drawled, even dropping the _r_ for an appropriately sweet _sugar_. “Or something.”

Taking a seat at Tim’s small kitchen table, Jeff countered, “What I’m hearing, Tim, are feelings of gross inadequacy.”

“You got me,” Tim said, bringing a plate of slightly over-cooked homemade potato wedges between their two burgers. “I long for the day my chin hits puberty.” 

They chatted and joked, mouths full, the odd knee brushing or foot meeting under the table. 

“Your landlord’s family owns a restaurant around here, right? What’s it like?”

“Indian food,” Tim answered, sweeping up a glob of ketchup onto a thick slice of potato. “Real hot. Real good.” 

“We should go sometime,” Jeff said, smiling in a way that was somehow entirely platonic and friendly and fractured Tim’s thinking. _What? Nope. Stop that._

Tim talked a little about work and Jeff shared the kind of bar stories drunks would have killed to have remembered. It grew into a pleasant evening and the only thing off, in Jeff’s estimation, was Tim’s choice to provide water, not beer. 

“I’m trying this healthy living thing,” Tim answered before taking another bite of the rare burger he’d cooked and swaddled with two thick slices of cheese, a TV-double homicide’s worth of ketchup, an encyclopedia-sized lettuce leaf, and a slice of tomato that could have been mistaken for a pork-chop--all settled between two white buns. 

Jeff wiped a dribble of mustard from his lip with his thumb. A bit stained his beard bright yellow, but Tim didn’t tell him. “You dating anyone?” 

Tim shrugged, not wanting to answer. “You?”

“Not at the moment.”

“You should hang out in more Applebees’ bathrooms,” Tim said with a straight face, then consumed another healthy bite.

Jeff leaned back in his chair, grinning. “Oh, yeah?”

Tim nodded gamely as he chewed. “The convenience, man. Lots of friendly faces. Sinks to wash up in. A toilet to deposit your dignity.” 

“Which do you frequent?”

“One on Richmond.”

“I’ll stop by, then.”

“Thursdays,” Tim advised. “Thursdays have a good crowd.” 

It was all toothy grins and suppressed snorts of laughter until Jeff faltered, lowered his gaze from Tim’s shining eyes to his empty plate. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to flirt.”

Tim didn’t miss a beat. “I have that effect on people,” he said, waving off Jeff’s apology with a flourish of a potato wedge. “Such is the power of my profound beauty. Don’t concern yourself.”

It was a friendly dismissal, but nonetheless forced. Still, Tim’s easy smile didn’t waver. He cleared the dishes while Jeff moved to set up the movie he’d selected. Instead of joining him, Tim stalled in the kitchen, his elbows back and hands resting against the counter to steady his relaxed leaning. He caught Jeff’s eye and licked his lips, anxious. 

“So, your mom was mixed nuts crazy, right?”

On the couch, Jeff frowned. “Uh, yes. Come again?”

Tim disappeared into the bathroom and returned holding two small pill bottles. “Maybe it’s not your expertise, but,” he plopped down on the couch and traded Jeff the bottles for the DVD case. “What’d’ya think? It was this or a lobotomy.” 

Completely caught off guard, Jeff stared open-mouthed at Tim’s pills, his presentation, his--everything. “Tim, I don’t--” His head shook in idle disbelief. “What are you taking these for?” 

“Raylan told me they were candy.” Tim said, straight-faced. When Jeff continued to stare, unamused, Tim tried again. “I’m unfulfilled in my work life.” 

_Third time’s the charm._ “I thought about it, and I decided I’d like for my pee-pee to burn outta me like a whiskey fountain.” Finally, his facade cracked. Tim emitted a low, aggravated sigh. There was no joke, or lie, or half-truth Jeff would accept from him now.

Jeff had brought their glasses of water to the coffee table while Tim was out of the room. Tim held his now, unfamiliar with the shape of the glass and weight of the liquid in it, and ultimately wishing it was a beer. 

“When me and Raylan were kidnapped back in October,” Tim started, and put out of his head the knowing expression blooming across Jeff’s face, “Raylan got locked in the trunk of a car and I was in the backseat, and--this is debatable--I was not the best hostage. Uhm,” Tim set down the glass and placed his hands on his knees as if he couldn’t trust them not to curl and stretch nervously. “This guy... Charles Herbert Weaver, 34, from Savannah, Georgia, a soft-headed, ugly sonovabitch, strung me up like a pig and raped me.” 

It was the first time Tim had spoken about the ordeal in exact terms since his first, involuntary hospital visit. ( _“Did the man assault you orally?” “No.” “Anally?” “Oh, yeah, stuck it right in there.”_ ) The first time he didn’t say _fuck_ or some other term Tim might have applied, otherwise, to shadow the whole thing as some crude turn of events, and not an awful crime. Tim stared straight ahead, avoiding Jeff’s fallen expression, and continued: “And it went on a while--couple of hours, I guess.” This was a lie; Tim knew exactly how long the ordeal lasted. Even when he lost consciousness, he was able to later account for time. 

Although he didn’t utter a word, Jeff responded in turn to Tim’s explanation. He inched closer, threading a tentative hand with one of the white-knuckled numbers clawing at Tim’s knee. Tim relaxed some and allowed the hand-holding. 

“Rather than put bullets in our brains, they abandoned the car and tried to blow it up. Overkill, right? Raylan got out--got both of us out. I put my pants back on and then I killed--” Jeff rubbed a thumb over the top of his hand, gentle and assuring. It threw Tim for a moment, but he regained his sense of self and pressed on with the one telling of events he’d long hoped to avoid. He cleared his throat and issued an apologetic smile. “One of the kidnappers had a gun on Raylan, so I shot him. And I killed the other... because of what he did to me.” Tim’s voice was raw and wrecked as he shared the one detail of the ordeal not even Raylan could claim to know for certain. “The report says it was a cerebral aneurysm. But I know it was me.” 

Tim, thinking of how he’d lied to Jeff and cast off Raylan, Rachel, and Art, wanted to add, _‘And that ain’t the worst of it.’_

He knew the regret and self-loathing in his voice spoke for itself, however, and didn’t necessarily need to voice what ate and tore at his insides. Tim shifted and released his hand from Jeff’s hold, raking it--still warm--through his hair. He gave a startled laugh.

“And that’s the story of how come, four months later, I’m scared shitless starting 20mg of antidepressants, which is probably about as lethal as a Flintstones vitamin. _Fuck._ ”

Arm curled around the back of the couch, leg drawn up and angled to put space between himself and Jeff, body twisted to do the same, Tim glanced sideways at his ex, waiting patiently as he frowned and sighed and sought the precise words to express how sorry he was that Tim endured what he did. As he spoke, Tim stared at his hands and turned one of the pill bottles over, counting its contents.

It was, Tim supposed, nothing special. But then--there wasn’t a great amount of room for improvisation on such matters. Tim hadn’t yet heard anything outside the range of _I’m so sorry that’s terrible do you want to talk about it I’m here if you need anything absolutely anything at all._

There wasn’t much else to say, really.

Jeff wet his lips and started again, his voice shaky as he imparted his quiet advice on Tim’s medication. “20mg is probably a good starting point. Follow your doctor’s instructions, okay? She’s better equipped to make these decisions but only-- _seriously, Tim_ \--only if you communicate with her. Tell her how this stuff makes you feel. If it doesn’t feel right, if the side effects are too much, tell her. Above all, I think you’re doing the right things, Tim. Keep it up.” Jeff’s voice cracked and shattered. 

He turned to Tim and looked him straight in the eye, and asked of him something no one else could. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Tim said immediately, only lying a little. “Never.”

Jeff scratched the side of his face, suddenly in agreement with Tim that the beard was ridiculous, because he could scarcely feel the gesture. “You put me in a really shitty position, Tim. I could have really fucked up.” 

“No more than me,” Tim’s voice had the same wet rawness usually only afforded to it with a strong drink or four. 

“No,” Jeff agreed softly, not liking how Tim sounded. 

Tim rested his head against the couch and stared up at the ceiling. In a dull drone he said, “My shrink says I’m a beautiful snowflake, deserving of love and forgiveness.” 

Jeff gave a tortured laugh-sob, then found Tim’s hand again and squeezed. “Yeah? You’ve got that. But you’re still an asshole.”

“Real perceptive,” Tim marveled, a tiny smile curling his pink lips. “You could do her job.”

Jeff’s freely given word of assurance made him nervous. _You’ve got that._

Tim studied a ceiling of his apartment a moment longer before glancing sideways at Jeff, who--despite his efforts to match Tim joke-for-joke--looked absolutely destroyed by the secret Tim had finally shared. “Shit,” Tim said, sitting up. He was aware of Jeff’s absent-minded hold on his hand, and was careful not to disturb it. “I feel like I really built this up. I don’t--it wasn’t so bad. Like, comparatively. Afghanistan was worse.” It came out too easily that Tim shirked back, all the more embarrassed. 

“I’m okay. I’m really okay.” He said it so plainly that it either had to be true, or one hell of a lie. The look on Jeff’s face told Tim it had been taken for the latter.

Tim tried again, “It’s done, all right? Everyone is dead, or in prison, or in lock-up while my coworkers and I dig up more shit on ‘em, because that’s how our justice system works.” His mouth twitched and bore a slight resemblance to a grin. “I feel like a regular Jodie Foster.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve got her haircut.” Jeff teased, trying to echo Tim’s smile. He couldn’t, and his attention fell to the two twin bottles on the table. 

“I’m glad you’re taking this seriously,” Jeff murmured. “I can make non-alcoholic drinks at the bar, but I understand if being someplace like that isn’t, uh, conducive.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tim said, only choosing to acknowledge the first half of the comment. 

“When did you start?” Jeff asked needlessly--he’d held them and read the date they were issued. What he wanted to know was _why,_ specifically, did Tim make this leap?

Tim heard the question Jeff wasn’t asking. “I was having a bad time.” 

“I thought we agreed you’d call,” Jeff needled. “If times were, uh, bad.”

“I wasn’t calling anyone,” Tim admitted. “If you had access to,” he picked up one of the bottles and gave it a little shake, “the good shit, yeah, I shoulda rang ya.” 

Tim felt Jeff give his hand yet another squeeze. In that instant it was as if Tim was waiting for himself again. He saw himself and Jeff on the couch, unburdened by distance or lies. Practically cuddled together, there was a real presence, a warmth that could not exist for any phantom and twinned fears or wants Tim harbored. 

“Why are we talking?” Tim asked, quiet and genuinely curious. “We could be fucking.” 

Before Jeff could sound off a word of refusal, Tim had thrown a leg over him and was straddling his lap. He rolled his shoulders, working out the tension, but kept his eyes on Jeff who--still--didn’t object. Tim curled inward and kissed him, all lips and tongue. Their chests moved flush and Tim’s hands found Jeff’s hair--shorter, now, to accommodate the beard. The soft curls felt like a memory between Tim’s fingers. 

And Tim thought-- _Jesus fucking Christ. This. Can I just have this._

But it seemed a waste of his position, so Tim lowered himself further and fit neater against Jeff. “Come’on, man,” Tim breathed, and Jeff found himself momentarily swayed. 

Tim’s tongue in his mouth, hands in his hair, and ass grinding against his hardening dick all made for a convincing argument.

Jeff’s hands traveled the expanse of muscle along Tim’s back, snaking under the thin fabric of the t-shirt and tasting the warm flesh with his fingertips. Jeff could imagine how easy it would be to tug the shirt up over Tim’s head and discard it on the floor. He wanted Tim’s nose in his hair and throat in his face. He wondered if Tim would give his mouth a little relief, allow Jeff to forge his own path down Tim’s neck and chest, tasting his adam’s apple and fading tattoo. 

Something told Jeff that Tim wouldn’t deny him anything. 

Jeff’s dick was hard and his balls were tight, frustrated in the confines of his jeans. For the first time, Jeff believed Tim felt the same. Jeff shifted and pressed back against Tim, who groaned achingly into his mouth.

In the kisses, Jeff tasted only Tim--no alcohol. 

His mind told him otherwise, as suddenly Jeff felt a bitterness coat his teeth--some chemical runoff that was somehow alien to Tim’s body. It didn’t stress Jeff’s imagination to guess the source. Jeff turned his head and moved his hands from Tim’s waist to his chest. He pushed gently. Tim took the hint and balanced himself. 

Jeff was very quiet for a time, just observing Tim. Tim’s lips were shiny and his pupils were blown. He indulged in opened-mouthed and chest-heaving breaths. He was beautiful, even with hunger and disappointment bleeding through his stoney expression. Jeff still felt the other man’s weight on his lap, but the excitement he’d known was displaced with profound regret. “You’re shaking,” he said. 

An annoyed grimace overtook Tim’s face and he shook his head while breaching the space between them. “It’s not this,” Tim said, searching out Jeff’s mouth with a series of desperate kisses. “It’s everything else.” 

Jeff didn’t push him away again, but kept his mouth shut in an unwavering line. Eventually, Tim slowed, then gave up. He rested his forehead in the hollow of Jeff’s cheek, but drew away because of the itch. 

“Fuck your fucking beard,” Tim breathed, inelegantly dispatching himself from Jeff’s lap. He dried his shiny pink mouth on his hand and his hand on his shirt. 

Then, because he didn’t feel confident saying anything else, Tim issued a frustrated--but sincere--“Sorry.”

Tim dropped his head into his hands, embarrassed. 

“I am so fucking sorry.”

His neck was burning red, Jeff saw, and knew it to be the kind of shame that made itself physical in a limp dick or a full-body flush. If Tim dealt in shame, Jeff’s choice poison was regret. He’d _wanted_ that neck, and hadn’t even tasted it. It could have been his.

Jeff sighed and closed his eyes.

“I care about you,” Jeff said, no longer of a mind to seek out Tim’s hand. His eyes traced the curve of Tim’s back--the view he’d taken in just moments ago with his hands. He could see the puckering of Tim’s t-shirt where he’d grabbed it, twisted in his grip, steadied and hugged Tim closer. And beneath the shirt, there were long red lines from Jeff’s dull nails--the evidence of his own desire, his own fault. “But more than that, Tim, _I worry about you._ ” While Tim successfully bit back a dark joke, Jeff did not. With bitter laughter clawing at his throat, he said, “I always swore I wouldn’t date my mother...”

Tim lifted his head from the bone cradle made by his hands, confused--then affronted. 

“Mental illness,” Tim frowned, recalling one of their earlier conversations. He sat back, sobered, thinking he was well and truly fucked if Jeff mistook his little episode for some fully fledged illness. He scrubbed a hand over his face and stared Jeff down, expecting an explanation. 

Jeff had an answer, his usual: “She was depressed after my little brother was born. She and my dad married young, and neither really knew what to make of it. It went on so long we didn’t see it changing... she developed schizophrenia and hallucinations. It killed her. Or, she killed herself.”

Tim didn’t need the pointed lesson, the cautionary tale, so Jeff didn’t elaborate. He figured if he were to ever really tell Tim about his mother, it would only be after Tim spared a word over his own. 

“So I worry about you, Tim, being alone with your thoughts. I hope you take your medication and keep seeing your doctor and--” Jeff drew a thumb across his lower lip, still tasting Tim. “I’m an asshole, but. I can’t watch you fail. And you can’t promise that you won’t.”

It may have been the worst thing Tim had ever heard said to him. Jeff certainly believed it to be the worst thing he’d ever said, so his heart broke a little deeper when Tim stood, scooped up his medication and returned it to his bathroom. Venturing back, he took a seat in the chair opposite of Jeff rather than reclaiming his space on the couch. Tim looked tired, drawn, and defeated. 

But when he met Jeff’s gaze, Tim gave an easy shrug and produced a weak smile. “So, you have a brother?” 

Jeff barked out a laugh. A line of bright white teeth broke through the dark of his beard.

Tim’s smile didn’t grow, but he looked all the sweeter for managing to recover his composure and senses. Things hadn’t gone as smoothly as planned, but Tim supposed it could have been worse. Unlike with Carol, the prospect of further visits wasn’t what Tim deemed a failure.

He leaned forward and snatched the DVD Jeff had brought from the coffee table. “Hey, asshole,” his voice was still weak and wanting, so Tim did his best to amp up the bravado. “This is in French. You said we’d watch a Western.”

Jeff recognized Tim’s effort for what it was, and gave him more of the same. “Hey, Captain America, check out the cover. Ten-gallon hats, not berets.”

“But that’s a baguette in his pants, right?” 

“Oh, Christ, speaking of--my _balls._ They are _lacquered_ blue.”

Tim grinned as Jeff hauled himself off the couch and awkwardly made his way to Tim’s bathroom. “I woulda taken care of that,” Tim teased, arms out, gesturing towards Jeff’s problem and his own helplessness. 

Jeff shut himself in, and Tim heard the immediate zip of his jeans. “Jesus. _God._ Stop talking!”

Tim scoffed. “You and your conscience.” 

Although Jeff was hardly a few feet away, Tim felt alone in his apartment once more. He stared at the place on the couch he’d once occupied, and didn’t trust himself to return to it. 

\- 

Just as quickly as the icy winter had come, the cold lifted and welcomed a pleasant spring.

On a warm Saturday, Raylan found himself on call, as well as at Tim’s apartment building, hoping to wrangle a favor. Tim’s SUV was parked neatly by a row of recently planted poplar trees, but Raylan didn’t believe Tim to be home. He watched the sidewalks and road, thinking maybe he’d gone running. 

Raylan didn’t know anyone else who fucking did that. Even Winona only ever hit the gym, her excuse being that while Kentucky was blessed with beautiful countryside, it was a bitch to get there. Too far to jog, certainly.

Rather than on foot, Tim arrived from the eighties, with a too-big pair of aviator sunglasses and his U.S. Marshals cap, worn backwards. Jeff rolled to a halt and Tim climbed out of the Jeep, leaving the stylish eyewear behind. They’d been paintballing and, from the looks of it, Jeff had been on the losing team. He’d taken a few direct green, pink, and orange hits to the chest, and there was paint splatter caught in his hair. The only blemishes on Tim were lime green and mirrored in the shape of fingerprints along his neck and jawline, like someone had drawn him in for a kiss. 

Raylan stood and observed the two, a little concerned as Tim hadn’t mentioned their getting back together. He said as much to Tim when he approached, languid and easy in his gait. 

“We’re not,” Tim insisted, imparting only a short wave to Jeff as he drove out of the lot, but no further explanation for Raylan.

“Nice warpaint, then.”

“Deathbed confession. Look,” Tim turned on Raylan and placed his hands along the side of his partner’s face. “He got in real close like this and he told me... that my dick tastes like Nutella.”

“Jesus Christ,” Raylan huffed, pushing Tim off of him. “You’re a monster.” 

Tim grinned, took off his cap, smoothed down his hair, and put the cap on again, bill forward. “S’what I’m told. What’d’ya need?”

“Rachel could use our help on a stakeout-turned-raid, if the paperwork is good,” Raylan said, then added needlessly, “If you’re up to it.” 

Hands resting on his hips, Tim nodded. He jerked his head towards his apartment. “You been waitin’ long? Two more minutes gonna send you for the hills?”

Raylan waved a hand. “We’re goin’ to the suburbs, actually.” 

“Aww,” Tim cooed, “That a marriage proposal?” 

“You got three good years for me?”

“Low-balling it,” Tim observed, halfway up the stairs. “Nice. I’m in.” 

“Three years is a lifetime,” Raylan called after him. “And don’t take a fucking hour, I’ve got your outfit picked out right here.” He waved the bulletproof vest over his head like a white flag.

In his apartment, Tim made two stops: his bedroom to retrieve his badge, gun, and holster, and his bathroom. 

The green spots were indeed from Jeff, playfully drawing him close. Tim brushed a hand over his hairline, highly aware of the exact spot Jeff had touched, all teeth and a broad grin, jokingly kissing him goodbye before the second game--or _slaughter_ , as Jeff termed it--began. 

They could do that, now. 

He washed his face clean and, through the open door to his bedroom, could see the drawer he kept his personal rifle and equipment bag. He supposed Rachel would see to it that a rifle be brought along for him, if it was deemed necessary to use it. He didn’t want to appear too eager for the task.

Tim hesitated a moment and drummed his fingers along the porcelain of the sink. His antidepressants were sat beside his toothbrush stand, both upright and stalwart like brave little soldiers. Tim had just begun his third month, third refill. He’d participated in stakeouts, raids, and his regular active-duty work since beginning the medication. 

He’d even shot and killed a man, once given the order to do so. His extra practice on the shooting range echoed his work in the field: he never missed. His hands were steady, his eyes focused, and his resolve plentiful. 

The medication didn’t allow him to forget what his skill amounted to--but it did allow him to opt out, to engage in a paintball game for the first time in his life and not be plagued with flashbacks. Tim felt muted in some ways, _evened out_ in others. Some of the time he didn’t like it; most of the time he didn’t care. 

He dried his face and secured to his belt the few items he’d need to kill a man and walk away from it, after. 

\- 

Tim had exactly one entry in the moleskine notebook Carol had given him, written in January after she’d asked that he _really make an effort this time._

It read: _Nope._

Rightly guessing he’d never use it for its intended purposes, she instructed a new task: keep notes on how he felt while on the antidepressants she’d prescribed him, and he’d bring it when they met and allow her to oversee his progress.

In the simple calendar chart provided in the back of the notebook, Tim marked off the days: February 1: _fine_ , February 2: _fine_ , February 3: _fine_ , February 4: _fine_ , February 5: _fine_ , and so on, through the months of March and April.

Nearly three months into his treatment, Tim put an end to the joke, and didn’t write anything for two weeks. 

Finally, scrawled in his barely-legible text, he wrote:

 _I do all the same shit I’ve ever done. But it’s like I’m in a different place. Afghanistan. It wouldn’t be real if I couldn’t find it on a map. I love it._

Carol saw this browsing through Tim’s journal and immediately cut Tim off--he’d been talking animatedly about work, how well it was going. Carol asked about what he’d written, saying at once that she was concerned. Taking the notebook, Tim felt like he was reading it for the first time. 

He said as much to Carol.

His heartbeat sounded off his his ears and Tim thought he could hear the blood sloshing through his veins. His pressed his palms into his sunken eyes until his saw stars. 

She asked if he disagreed at all with the message. 

Tim stared unbelievingly at the note and felt a heavy sadness envelop his heart. The pounding grew louder and Tim didn’t think he’d be able to hear himself over it. He simply made the shape with his mouth.

“No.” 

One day later and at his own discretion, Tim was tapering off the medication. Four weeks on and he was off them completely, and declining yet another paintball game invitation. A week after that and Tim had returned to the over-the-counter sleeping pills, which carried the same warning as the antidepressants: _WHEN TAKING THIS MEDICATION DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES._ It was a warning Tim easily discarded. 

Embarrassed, Tim canceled all future appointments with Carol. He declined the option of trying a new medication, believing instead that the depressive episode was a fluke and normally, he was manageable. (Carol urged Tim to rethink this. “It can be treatable,” she told Tim in a voicemail--a last-ditch effort to reach him. “Results may be inconsistent but we can find what works.” In an email some weeks later, Tim wrote that he could not afford to think the way he had about his work. _I have to know what I’m doing._ )

He returned to what worked: escapism, alcohol, and a certain amount of self-awareness to mask his behavior. The antidepressants had obliterated Tim’s access to the latter two, a fact Tim only came to realize while coming down off their steady high. 

Tim found that, although it took a while, he thought less and less about the ordeal. At Jeff’s bar--which Tim came to frequent--he joked that he should have just kept drinking all along. Less celebratory was his admission that he wished he’d never agreed to the medication, because its effects permeated every aspect of his life, because in retrospect, it _had_ made him feel good. 

“About what?”

Tim had shrugged. “About killing people. About waking up in the morning. Everything.” 

He’d always been an honest drunk, sat up at the bar before respective bowls of pistachios and peanuts, as well as a drink he found wasn’t so readily refilled. These nights became routine; usually, they weren’t so morose. Tim was good company and Jeff liked having him around, perched at the bar where they could talk and joke during slower nights. On two occasions, Tim flashed his badge and delivered some not-so-idle threats, breaking up two would-be bar brawls. That--and his drinking--earned Tim the favor of Jeff’s fellow co-owner. 

Tim brushed off the adulation. The once quiet bar had slowly adopted a hipper atmosphere, and in anyplace queuing up Swedish jazz, Tim didn’t anticipate much of a fighting crowd. 

“I used to live in Michigan,” Jeff told him one evening when, again, Tim found the service to be lacking. His second glass was practically empty and he was hardly even buzzed. (A twisted grin and a “Why do I even _come here?_ ” became Tim’s patented complaint for when Jeff’s service was slow.) 

Tim nodded, then continued to pluck a few pistachios from a chrome dish on the bar. He arranged them pointing outward around his empty beer glass. Against the dark woodgrain swirl of the bartop, the image looked positively cosmic. Tim stared at it and fell into space. 

“Hey,” Jeff scolded, frowning at Tim’s little display. 

Tim smiled dopily. “What? I just saw you clean the counter.”

“Dude, right. _I just cleaned the counter._ Keep yours nuts off it.”

A great, toothy grin broke across Tim’s face. His laser-sharp eyes halved as the smile reached them, crinkling the edges and sharpening the blues. “Heh.” 

Tim swept up his mess and deposited the pistachios in his mouth. Between crunchy, open-mouthed bites, he asked, “So. Michigan?”

Jeff folded his arms and leaned over the bar so as to speak intimately with Tim. “There was a Congresswoman who struggled with depression. She spoke at my junior high school, once.”

“If this story ends with you banging a member of congress behind the gym bleachers, I’ll buy _you_ a drink.” Tim drained his glass, then muttered pointedly: “And refill it, too.” 

Jeff shared a crooked smile with the shiny bartop. “That’s a specific fantasy,” he said refusing to take Tim’s hint.

Propping a fist under his chin, Tim gave a long, dreamy sigh. “Mine’d be, Mitch McConnell, in the science lab, on a Wednesday morning in April.”

Jeff made a displeased face. “He’s a Senator.”

“I dream big.”

Jeff inclined his head and Tim moved to meet him. The music was loud--and barely discernable as music--but Tim didn’t hear a word of it for all the warmth from Jeff. It buzzed in his ears. “I didn’t sleep with her,” he prefaced needlessly. “She told us that even when the illness is stabilized, you have to replace the coping mechanisms that made sense in the context of the illness and that do not make sense in the context of health.” Jeff settled back and wet his lips, nearly certain he’d quoted the congresswoman exactly. (3) His eyes dropped to Tim’s glass, its insides streaked with foamy residue and not much else.

The message was too on-point, and since Tim had invited Jeff over and sought his opinion, neither had breached the subject a second time. Tim felt a little unprepared. It wasn’t as though Jeff had ordered him out of the bar, even if Tim suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to leave. With two fingers, Tim gently pushed his empty glass towards Jeff. In any other instance, the gesture would have indicated a refill. 

Tim knew he wasn’t going to get one from Jeff.

“Thanks for the civics lesson,” Tim said, his mouth curling into a tight little smile. He swiftly produced his wallet and paid for his drinks, readying to leave. 

“Tim...” 

“It’s the music,” Tim dismissed as he hopped off the barstool and slid into his jacket. He’d draped it over the stool next to him to ward off interested parties. Although it was playfully twisted and showed a hint of teeth, Tim’s smile didn’t put Jeff at ease. “It’s stupid and makes me want to fucking die.” 

“Come’on, Tim.” Jeff made a losing grab for the sleeve of Tim’s jacket. 

“Maybe you should play some hymns,” Tim suggested, raising his voice to be heard as he crossed the bar. “You know, if you’re gonna preach.”

Tim drove himself home, but didn’t venture inside his apartment. He walked the mile and a half down the street, past his landlord’s restaurant and into the bar beside it. It was a cool night, but held nothing like the bitter cold of the past few months. Out of habit, Tim stationed himself at the bar, across from the bartender. 

Realizing his mistake too late, Tim put a crick in his neck turning to view the television mounted to his right. 

The beer was swill but at least it was _there_ , gamely given and not purchased with the meager remains of Tim’s pride. 

Tim had heard through the grapevine that some Louisville fella was after Art’s job, and Art had scared him off with just an idea of who the man would be dealing with. A team as troublesome as the fugitives they were after, was the gist of it. The term _alcoholic_ was thrown around, and given the way Tim felt when he heard it, he knew it wasn’t meant for Raylan. Tim supposed he could add it to the grab-bag he’d revealed to Rachel, making him a depressed, PTSD-having, repressed homosexual and budding alcoholic. Tim supposed if he could halve his neurosis and give them to someone else, they’d make a fine pair for a buddy comedy. 

There was no splitting them in a way that seemed fair, however. 

“This tastes like the piss you’d take after drinking a real beer,” Tim told the bartender after his third glass of _”whatever’s on tap.”_ He was grinning.

The bartender didn’t grin back; his was a shitty job and engaging with the drunks didn’t improve things. “So go drink your home brew or order another.”

Tim was still grinning. “Fuck you, I will.”

\- 

“It was good, right?” Tim asked, stepping out of Raylan’s car and leveling an expectant frown at him. “Jerry liked it.”

Raylan made a bemused face. “Jerry is looking at a life sentence for running a couple thousand guns through Kentucky.”

“So? It’s a human story,” Tim grinned stupidly. “It’s got broad appeal.” 

“Uh-huh.”

Admittedly, Raylan did enjoy the audiobook Tim had brought along for their routine and early-morning prisoner transport gig. On the return leg, Rachel called to tell them they’d missed a shirt storm of a morning at the office, and might as well mollify their absence by stopping for coffee and donuts.

 _“This is not a request. It is a courtesy call.”_ Rachel had told Tim and Raylan sternly, after demanding that she be put on speakerphone. _“I have courteously saved your skins from a wildly pissed Chief Deputy.”_

The only debate had about the matter in the car was which coffee and pastry shop to stop at.

They chose a local favorite, and at the counter Tim read off the order in his low drawl, pausing only when the barista moved to collect more paper cups and switch out her fading marker. Raylan, satisfied only to chime in at the last minute with a large order for pastries, leaned against the counter, people watching. A woman’s swollen belly and messy side-braid caught his eye and made his heart ache for Winona. Her ample breasts, however, brought Lindsey to mind. 

Raylan caught sight of another woman--older, but not without her beauty, drinking a latte and thumbing the bookmark stuck in the very last chapter of a Paul Theroux travel memoir-- _Dark Star Safari._ Besides her sharp platinum blonde hair, she would have otherwise been unremarkable--save for the fact that as Raylan was watching her, she was watching him. 

“I know it’s a big order,” Tim was saying to the grim-faced barista. “But I’m good for it.” 

She cracked a smile and started to punch in each coffee, latte, macchiato, and fucking specialty drink with extra flavor shots. As Tim paid, Raylan tapped his arm twice with the back of his hand. 

“You ain’t changing a goddamn thing,” Tim warned, turning. He spotted her immediately. 

Raylan made sure to pocket the receipt before following after Tim, who approached the woman without trepidation. 

She stood to meet him, and wordlessly they parted ways from Raylan and ventured to a quieter corner of the coffee shop. Raylan moved to stand next to the woman’s abandoned table, watching over her still-steaming coffee and well-worn book. Winona’s voice bounced between Raylan’s ears, asking that he watch her bag, beer, coffee, meal, whatever. Raylan couldn’t imagine what Winona thought would happen to a cobb salad if left unattended, but she’d trained him well. Certainly, Raylan’s subsequent flings appreciated the gesture. 

The woman corralling Tim’s attention seemed less concerned about her drink, however. She spoke at length before Tim appeared to answer her, and always kept eye contact. Raylan watched, curious of Tim and the woman with whom he was speaking so intimately. Tim’s hands were at his sides while the woman held one along Tim’s forearm, fingers curling just at his elbow.  
Raylan didn’t know what to make of _that._

The woman talked and Tim listened, alternatively shaking his head _no_ and _fuck no._

Tim shifted his weight and inclined his head--all signs of his growing impatience and unease. It wasn’t long after that that he heard their order and took his leave, as though a dozen coffees couldn’t wait. Raylan joined the effort, glancing sidelong at the woman as he followed Tim out of the shop.

She was about as stone-faced as Tim, making Raylan’s task of nosying in considerably more difficult. She tidied her hair and returned to her book and latte, unafraid to take a sip.

“I’ve been thinking it over,” Raylan started as he and Tim juggled the trays of drink orders and loaded them into Raylan’s car, “And I think I’ve got it. She’s the mother of the serious girlfriend you had in high school, and she just wants to know why you and her little princess Shelly couldn’t make it work.” 

“Close,” Tim deadpanned, thinking _That’d be easier._ He amended: “She’s my therapist.”

Raylan wasn’t surprised; that was his second guess. “She looked a little starved for quality time,” he observed, remembering her tracking stare and the hand at Tim’s elbow. 

Tim shrugged. “I stopped seeing her,” he said in a low mumble. “She wants me back on antidepressants.”

“Oh.”

Hearing his own voice--the unbridled and genuine surprise that colored his exclamation a touch too brightly--Raylan tried to recover. “Okay. All right. Didn’t know that was a... thing. With you.”

Tim’s stare cut Raylan in half; it scalped him. “Rachel didn’t tell you,” he said slowly, like his world was cratering in and the sound of the crash--of Raylan’s shock and admitted ignorance--was deafening. Tim looked as though he’d put something rotten in his mouth, and left it to dissolve on his tongue. “‘Course not, she’s a decent human being.” 

_“Hey.”_ Raylan very nearly told Tim off--and would have felt justified in doing so--but left it there. A stern warning in lieu of a scolding: _we don’t do that anymore._ Truthfully, their relationship had slowly rebuilt itself. At work, they backed one another up without hesitation, and it wasn’t often that either needed reminding to reign in their attitudes. 

Raylan threw Tim a curious glance. “So, what’s your poison? Zoloft? Prozac? Abilify? Lustral? Paxil?” 

Appreciative of the fact that Raylan spent a lot of nights watching television spots for antidepressants--although not _actually_ appreciative that he was calling on that knowledge now--Tim nodded gamely. “Yes,” he said, far too enthusiastically. “All of that. Pfizer sends me a _thank you_ card with every refill.”

It was a joke, but Tim wasn’t smiling. Raylan knew there was no invitation to continue, and more troubling--no indication of what was wanted of him, now. 

_Let’s forget about it._ Not a feasible plan, as Raylan had already displayed his inability to do exactly that. 

_That’s nice._ But it wasn’t. At least, given his tight-lipped expression and bright, shining eyes cutting a glare outside the window and across the lot, Tim didn’t think so. 

_Good for you._ An insult. 

_Good._ A lie.

Raylan took off his hat and swept a hand over his hair, then donned the hat again.

He hated this shit.

It was old shit, and even though he knew the topics it hid under, Raylan always managed to take that misstep. 

In the front window, Raylan could see that Tim had lifted his head and was staring at him, his expression pinched in an unsaid apology. In his own reflection, Raylan saw that he’d unintentionally mirrored the look. 

“What’d you get, anyway?” Tim asked, his voice a little raw. “Donuts? Gimme one.”

“Don’t eat your feelings, Tim.”

It came out of Raylan so easy, so unbridled, _so fucking cool_ , that Tim had to smirk. They sat in the car together, both aware that Carol hadn’t yet left. Each had a warm pastry in hand and was content to eat it in companionable silence, stacked coffee orders forgotten. When Carol did leave the coffee shop, she spared one last glance around the parking lot, unable to spy Tim for all the tinting of Raylan’s windows. Raylan fit the rest of his donut into his mouth--it was no DQ soft serve, but it could do in a pinch--and put the car into gear.

“Winona wanted to do couples counseling back when we were married,” Raylan offered as he slowly pulled away from the shop.

“I can only guess how that worked out,” Tim said around a mouthful of sweet, chewy dough. He caught a red sprinkle on his lip with his tongue.

“That week you took off,” Raylan figured for the time and Tim’s changing attitude over the past few months, but left the question hanging, hoping Tim would intervene. Raylan didn’t want to have to ask, but Tim--seeing the question as inevitable--put on an innocent face and forced Raylan into it. The smartass gesture was, at least, a hallmark of the Tim Raylan had always known. “Did you--have a breakdown or something?”

“It’s only a breakdown if I shoot someone I’m not supposed to,” Tim reasoned coolly. “That’s never been my problem.” 

It was clear to Raylan that Tim wasn’t going to answer, but truthfully--it wasn’t the question Raylan was burning to ask. “What do you get out of it? Therapy, I mean. What’s the takeaway?”

“Free samples.” 

Tim watched the city roll past his window--the same city he’d seen every day for the past few years, but at a lower vantage point. It was strangely familiar, Tim thought, to be level with everyone else. He glanced at Raylan. “What do you do when you got a problem? Besides shoot at it.” 

“Why mess with what works?” Raylan smirked, uncertain if Tim’s question was genuine or if he was trying something else. “I don’t know, man--I think about it.”

“Right,” Tim said, biting back a sharp _Could have fooled me._ “But what if the problem is one of those... two trains leaving from bumfuck wherever, traveling at the speed of dick to goddamn Guam problems.”

“Guam’s an island.”

“Plant your ass on a Sea-Doo, then.” Tim’s honest frustration sobered Raylan; he was figuring an answer to his question, after all. “It’s one of those problems, and you don’t know math. You don’t have the knowledge to even _begin_ working out an answer.” Again giving away more than he’d intended, Tim continued, “You could read a book, learn the language of the problem, but... there are people on that train-- _Sea-Doo_ \--whatever. There is no room for fucking error.” 

Raylan found himself staring unseeingly at the road. If he’d heard right, Tim had admitted his problem was _life or death._

Tim continued, thoughtful and a little less frustrated with his audience. “And maybe you’ve got it figured out anyway--you’re weirdly booksmart, right?” Tim tried for a toothy grin, but it didn’t quite take. Instead, Tim took on a quiet confidence that seemed to stall his nerves and steady his voice. He spoke resolutely: “But you will track down your ninth grade math teacher to the ends of the earth to be abso-fuckin-lutely sure.”

Raylan nodded, not quite sure what to make of Tim’s comments. 

“So,” Tim hummed, “the takeaway.” He looked as though he’d rather be lunching on a bag of nails, but that wasn’t so far removed from his normal resting expression. “I guess I learned something, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

Tim drummed his fingers along the interior of Raylan’s car, as though contemplating whether or not to let Raylan in just that much further. He acquiesced, finally, with a blank expression and a gaze that disappeared out of the side window. “If you stay one way long enough, that’s the way you are.”

“I’d ask if you’ve been drug tested recently, but I think I got my answer,” Raylan gave a derisive snort. “No shit, Tim. People are what they are. The Popeye Syndrome, if I’m not mistaken. You paid good money to hear that?” 

Tim, not allowing himself to feel slighted, didn’t bat an eye. “You’re not listening.”

“You’re not paying me to,” Raylan snarked. “All right, all right, go. Enlighten me.”

Tim wet his lips. “You get scared, fine. You stay scared, you’re a coward. You stay sad, you’re,” Tim waved an errant hand as if to say, _Like me. Depressed. In need of mind-altering pharmaceuticals._ “You stay angry, and you’re a killer.” Tim’s eyes flashed to Raylan and back. He steadied himself, kept his sights trained on the road ahead. “It’s modifiable behavior, but you’ve gotta try. It doesn’t work to just wait it out. You get sadder and angrier.”

Raylan didn’t have to _try_ not to grin anymore. 

In giving his explanation, Tim didn’t sound particularly embarrassed or put-upon. In fact, the easy, assured tone brought Raylan back to his first interaction with the Deputy on the job--a stakeout, wherein they had eyes on a one-time exotic dancer, Shirley Kelso. Raylan had asked after Tim’s secret to keeping his focus on targets. Tim donned a crooked smile and rattled off details of one of his hits--unique, it seemed, only considering the time he waited for it. 

Three days.

 _“You watch a man that long, you get to know him better than his wife does. How he reads the paper, picks his nose. What glass he likes for tea, what one for milk.”_ Raylan remembered the goofy grin that spread across Tim’s face. _“If he jerks off, what he looks at when he does. If he’s nice to the dog when no-one’s around.”_

That had been Tim’s life--watching, learning people, and then delivering one expert shot to end the show. 

_They told us to come up with stories about ourselves and the target._

Raylan had a well-deserved reputation as a shooter, but still--it hadn’t been his job description. 

Even now, Tim’s tone betrayed his confidence. There wasn’t a breath of doubt between his words. An expert sniper turned... Raylan couldn’t claim to see the picture of mental health in Tim, but he saw the momentary return of the sharp, combative man who had very quickly earned Raylan’s respect. They were two vast extremes, yet Tim seemed to have commandeered a stake in both realities. 

So Raylan softened, some, in his needling. 

“Guess that makes sense,” Raylan said at last, catching Tim’s eye. “The angry part.” 

Amidst their shared kidnapping, Tim’s assault, the investigation and continued attacks--Raylan had not escaped the ordeal unscathed. Then again, Raylan had a lifetime of running from Arlo and Harlan County, of running down guys like Tommy Bucks, and all the while learned the application of an intimate kind of harm. He supposed he wasn’t unfamiliar with Tim’s lesson, but he hadn’t lied--the application of his weapon hadn’t failed him yet.

“Yeah, that was for you,” Tim said dryly. He slurped his coffee. “I’m not angry.” 

\- 

It wasn’t a week later that Art offered a wholly unexpected assessment of his most junior Marshal: “You seem back to your normal self.”

“Thanks,” Tim droned, frowning because it didn’t sound like a compliment. He’d just had his gun leveled at a thirteen-year-old boy all because of some Panamanian diplomatic bag Raylan had pulled out of the walls of his house, like some asshole. Before the moment passed, Tim followed up quickly: “I am.”

He turned and busied himself with loading a bag full of confiscated weapons into the trunk of Raylan’s car. He didn’t want to see the perfunctory nod Art gave, so he pretended to have trouble fitting the bag into the space afforded to it. 

He stared at the small, black space and thought of Raylan there, filling in every corner with each razor-sharp elbow and old-baseball-injury knee. Tim turned his head, trying for a better angle. He couldn’t quite picture it. A dead body, now, that could be made to fit. There was no accounting for comfort. 

But Raylan was tall, built like a beanstalk and damn near immovable, as if a natural stubbornness coated his bones. Tim just couldn’t fathom it until, suddenly, he could. Like he’d crawled in for a demonstration, Tim saw Raylan in the space. Bruised, bleeding, his eyes folding open and closed as he teetered on the edge of consciousness. 

Tim closed the trunk and leaned against it, hands flat on the sleek metal. A hot wind hit his neck and Tim tasted sand and grit. A second later, and Tim’s mouth felt sweaty and full, like he was gagging on some unseen substance. Tim squeezed his eyes shut and focused on the sounds from the house. Waldo’s widow was still harassing Art and that shitty pre-teen was nipping at Raylan’s heels, going on about his piece. 

Without a thought to the contrary, Tim took off. He walked slowly, endowed with some unknown purpose, across the gravel road and into the overgrown brush and trees that Milo had sought to lose them in on his bike. Twigs and dying grass snapped and sighed under his boots, but there was shade and the space felt secluded. He struck out a hand and took hold of a sampling for support, then bent at the waist and vomited. 

Three great heaves and Tim had emptied his stomach of the lunch he’d shared not three hours ago with Art and Raylan. Globs of potato, barbecue, and corn puddled in the brush, all sweetened with the ice tea Art had ordered for the three of them. A line of slime and potato hung from a tall piece of grass to the soft earth like a fallen trapeze--kind of perfect and beautiful and dangerous. The effort stung Tim’s throat, but the release was much-needed. 

Tim wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

If depression was an illness, Tim supposed this was the first symptom that made any sense.

He stood still for a moment, cautious that what he was feeling was a kind of peace, and not the quiet before the storm. Tim’s vision of the trunk, thoughts of Raylan’s confinement, and his own subsequent and unhindered assault soon faded from his mind. He reasoned the fear away, taking pains to pick through his own mind and remove what wasn’t in the _here_ and _now._ With long steps, he ventured back the way he came, climbing out of the brush and crossing the road. He saw that Art and Raylan were waiting at the car for him, and the whole Truth family had gathered on their dilapidated porch, curiously watching the straying _fed’ral._

Tim didn’t quicken his steps or duck his head. He made the slow march back to the car, squinting against the sunlight breaking through clouds, and shrugging off his fellow Marshals’ concerned looks.

“Brisket didn’t sit well with me,” Tim said, still at a distance. 

Jud Truth raised his joint like a beacon. “You want I should roll you one, Officer? For the road?” 

“Naw,” Tim dismissed, arriving at the car. “I got my glaucoma pretty much managed.”

“Well, ain’t you an inspiration,” the Truth widow crowed back. Tim would have laughed, but felt the gesture might rattle something else out of him. He opened his door and glanced at Art. Whatever soft, concerned look Tim might have feared was gone now, replaced with a playfully spiteful frown. Real or forced, it was expertly applied. The knot in Tim’s gut slackened considerably.

“The hell’s the matter with you? That was a $40 meal!”

“And I enjoyed it twice.” Tim drummed a short beat on the hood of the car. “Let’s go. Raylan’s got a pilates class to make.”

Driving off the Truth’s property, Raylan turned on the radio and lowered the windows, thinking Tim could do with the fresh air. Under cover of his hat, Raylan glanced in the rearview mirror and snuck a look at his fellow Marshal. He seemed--fine. With a furrowed brow, focused stare, and a barely-there smile that could very well just be the natural shape of his mouth, Tim looked every bit as apathetic and bored and mildly annoyed and pleasantly bemused with his surroundings as he’d ever been. 

Raylan supposed he could be off his game, but the image looked real. He returned his eyes to the road, feeling no need to scrutinize Tim further.

Tim stuck out his elbow and leaned into the breeze whipped up along the tree-hugged road. He kept his eyes open, even though the cool air rushing past stung a little. He watched the countryside curl, roll, pinch and unfurl. Horse farms swallowed endless expanses of land, then opened like a river’s mouth to great wealths of trees and forest. 

_Versailles is fucking beautiful. More crime should happen in Versailles._

From the backseat, Tim enjoyed the view.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (3) Lynn Rivers, quoted by Andrew Solomon in _The Noonday Demon._ p.384
> 
> The French film mentioned is “Lucky Luke” starring Jean Dujardin. Check out his OSS 117 films if you love hilarity and hairy chests!
> 
> Thanks again for reading :)


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